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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Evening Bells 



By 

GEORGE ALBERT SMITH 



With Life Pictures 

Selected by his Daughter 

Maralene 



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CINCINNATI 

Printed for the Author by Jennings and Pye 
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THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

APR 13 1 903 

Copyright Entry 

CLASS a/ XXc No 

COPY i. 



.AHt E 



CoFYRIGHTj 1902, 

BY 

George Albert Smith. 



All Rights Reserved. 



• • • ■ « • 



.& 



Tit nig irar warn 

Whose Patient Ministry has Made this Work Possible, 
the Volume is Affectionately Inscribed. 

— The Author. 



PREFACE. 

7HB following pages, gentle reader, are wholly 
a work of love. From childhood the realm 
of the Beautiful and True has been for us an en- 
chanted land, and the spirit's zving-beats against 
the cage of earthly limitations have been constantly 
pleading for an open door to come and speak with 
you; and when kind fortune gave us the leisure we 
entered upon it with all the joy of a deferred birth- 
right. 

In this book we have touched life's golden morn- 
ing, its stern mid- day, and its pensive evening as 
best we could. And now, as we write "Finis" upon 
the last white leaf sitting here in this quiet home 
where kindred spirits and a magnetic nourishing 
silence have so helped us in making our report to 
kindred souls, there comes to us an inexpressible 
loneliness at the thought of going from it to the 
critical judgments of men. *But we know the Amer- 
ican public is generous to beginners, hoping some- 
thing better may come with the chastenings of ex- 
perience. 

We can not brace our courage by reference to 
previous authorship, for this is our first offering. 

7 



8 Preface. 

We wish, of coarse, the little waif might live; but 
should the bufferings of Time prove too severe, our 
. own compensation is already quite complete in the 
enlargement of soul that has come from the writ- 
ing, and human life will henceforth have for us a 
deeper meaning for our rambles here through its 

troubled realm. 

The Author. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Address to the Ocean, in behalf of a sick child, 101 

Acknowledging a Gift, 112 

Anna L,ee, 176 

A Father Gone, 67 

An Order for a Picture, 204 

A Song for Young People, 18 r 

A Child Again, 226 

A November Birthday, 71 

A Varied Ministry, 68 

A Misconception, 187 

Answered, 157 

A Daughter's Wedding Anniversary, 221 

Answer to a Child's Wish, 54 

A Caution, 166 

A Woman is a World Unknown, in 

Alone in the World, 178 

Bride Roses, 148 

Baby Dead, 162 

Burning IyOve Letters, 116 

Birds, 45 

Clearer Vision, 98 

Childless, 82 

Closed Byes, 38 

Dreams, 94 

Daisies, 56 

Dorcas, 158 

9 



io Contents. 

Page 

Ennui, • • • 22 7 

Eva McConnell, - 215 

Friendship, 120 

Fifty Sweet Years with Jesus, 219 

Furnace Fires, 223 

Grandmother, 231 

Good Times, 179 

George Albert Smith, 230 

Her Reasons, 134 

Heart Telegraphy, 220 

Hail and Farewell to the Centuries Parting, 232 

I Would Come Nearer Thee, 189 

Life Its Own Reporter, 188 

IvOSS, 113 

Light, 32 

Lonesome, 124 

Love Not the World, 70 

Little Paul, 169 

Liberty, i.53 

Love Asleep, 147 

Lies, 150 

Lessons of the Flowers, " 123 

My Little Playmate, 65 

My Faithful Bruno, 154 

Mothered, 137 

Monument Mountain, 139 

My Hymn, • 242 

Moses the Man of God, . 59 

My Country, 7 6 

My Soul's Evening Hymn, 104 

Nature's Plan, 103 

Nature, • 17 

Our Twenty-fifth Wedding Anniversary, 193 

Our Desire to See Power Exerted, 196 



Contents. u 

Page 

On the Mountain, 81 

Poet of Childhood, 163 

Photograph of a Beautiful Child, 210 

Roses in a Sick-room, 115 

Reflection, 184 

Snow, 24 

Smiles, 14° 

Stars, 157 

Silent, " 125 

Sunset, 236 

Shadows, :. 209 

Since She Died, '. 237 

Sons of Freemen, 171 

To Abraham Lincoln, 200 

The First Born, . 214 

To Alene, 203 

That Player I Heard, 20 

To a Failing Sense, 213 

To an Absent Daughter, 132 

To Our Boy upon Leaving Us for the West, 37 

To Our Boy upon Leaving Us for Heaven, 37 

To My Sister, 96 

Those Beautiful Eyes, 90 

To My Wife on her Fifty-seventh Birthday, 172 

To Jenny Lind, 121 

The Peace Conference, 58 

The Weak Man, 84 

The New Songs, 197 

Tides, 44 

The Angels, 19 

Trouble and Night, 69 

The Old Man, 143 

The Silent Guide, 170 

Truth, . . 167 



12 Contents. 

Page 

Two, 174 

The Wreck, " 228 

The Flowers' Queen, 190 

The High Resolve, 241 

Timidity, 89 

The Narrow Man, 224 

The Storm King, 126 

Tears, 114 

The Meeting, 26 

The Cold Man, 176 

The Grave of Self, in 

That Cave, 85 

The Way of Trust, 43 

Then I 'm Thinking of Home, 93 

The Sweet, Sad Years, 66 

The High-born Soul, 175 

The Parley in Eden, 5 2 

To My Son on his Twenty-first Birthday, 118 

Unsaid, 161 

Utility, • • 183 

Unrest, • • • I77 

Upon the Marriage of a Daughter, 164 

Understood, 198 

"Vive, Bspania," 34 

Woman's Power, 229 

When, 108 

Winter, 89 

Why Do the Noblest Die? 75 

Your Gift, 183 

Zephyrs, 180 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Page 

Author, Frontispiece 

With Some Calm Dell for my Retreat, 16 

I Met Her on a New- Year's Eve, 27 " 

Singing Betimes, 45 

Cooing and Wooing, • 46 

Made for the Skies, 47 

Sing in the Rain, 47 

Sessions for Counsel, 47 

In Downy Nest, 48 

Children of Snow, . 49 

Into those Arms of L/Ove, 5 1 

Daisies, 56 

I Sadly Know, . . . . ' 57 

Chloe and I, 65 

Redeeming the Time, 73 

Those Beautiful Byes, 9 1 

Love's Halo, 99 

When, 109V 

Warm Carnations Cooled by Ferns, 112 

l/ove L/etters, 116 

The Ashes of All my Early Dreams, 117 

The Storm King, 127 

Charms his Generous Love Created, 135 

Ivooking Toward the Home of Kindred, I4 jV 

My Faithful Bruno, 155 

The Old Story, 161 

13 



14 Illustrations. 

Page 

A Sacred Drawer, • . « ...... - 162 

Little Paul, 169 

A Sainted Face, 185 

And there were Roses in the World, 191 

Personality's Subtle Charm, 207 

Photograph of a Beautiful Child, 211 

Her Home was on a Lonely Moor, 215 

She Wrought Such Fancies on her Hems, 217 

A Shaft of Granite, 218 

Heart Telegraphy, 220 

The Wreck, 228 

The Aimless Arrows, 229 

Sunset, 236 

And I Went On Alone, 238 

To Music She had Set my Soul, 239 

His Grave, 241 



Evening Bells 



NATURE. 

Nature, I love thee; since a child 
Thou hast my weary hours beguiled, 
And through their shadows often smiled. 

I Ve wished I were a child of thine ; 
Thy gentle ways would fashion mine, 
Till wayward life to good incline. 

With some calm dell for my retreat, 
Where thou and I could often meet, 
How might I learn at thy dear feet ! 

If to thy generous bosom pressed, 
Or by thy gentle winds caressed, 
How could my weary spirit rest ! 

I come not to thee as a spy ; 
I offer love as reason why 
I seek thy treasured mystery. 

i7 



18 Evening Bells. 

Lovers speak not the loved one's name, 
Alone they tend the sacred flame, 
Perfecting titles to their claim. 

So Nature never names her own ; 
But from her beauty builds a throne 
Where God may sit, but He alone. 

O God ! the infinite in me, 

And outward, are alike from Thee; 

'T is mine to make their harmony. 



THE ANGELS. 

I wonder if the Angels dream, 

Who never feel the need of sleeping : 

Or if they miss the power of tears, 

And sometimes crave our gift of weeping ? 

I wonder if the Angels mate, 

And know the joy of consecration : 

Or if they 're gone too much from home, 
To know the bliss of such relation ? 

I wonder if Angelic bliss 

Can cloy, and make them wish to borrow 
The thrills that human hearts receive 

From contrasts in the realm of sorrow ? 

I wonder if the Angels camp 

The other side of silence nightly, 

And give us care while wrapt in sleep, 
We never know, they step so lightly ? 



19 



THAT PLAYER I HEARD. 

DEDICATED TO MISS ALICE MARIE SHEPARD, VIOLINISTE. 

Sparkles dance in eyes of dew, 

The heralds of her keenest blisses, 

Frolic lurks in silent lips — 

Those sweet petitioners for kisses. 

Rhythm sways a fragile form 

To and fro in pleasing motion, 

Fingers catch the slightest breeze 
That ripples on the inward ocean. 

Nerves of gauze, embossed with bloom ; 

When feeling weds with intuition — 
Outer harp, so finely strung, 

The impulse leaps to glad fruition. 

Heaven strung with nerves of steel, 
And fired this little baffling wonder. 

Daring frailty rides with joy 

The ocean billows, mocked by thunder. 

Streams are loosened in the hills, 

Winds and torrents both are coming, 

Desolation's chill within, 

Authentic chaos in the gloaming. 

20 



. That Player I Heard. 21 

Fires are kindled on the rocks, 

And while the witch's broth is boiling 

Snaps her spite on single strings, 
That leave the timid soul recoiling. 

All the fashions of the world 

Are having a composite picture. 
All the flavors tongue can taste 

Are being stirred in one wild mixture. 

Tears are dripping from her tones, 

While nature, knelt in prayer, is weeping. 

Evening, with its eyelids wet, 

Seems watching o'er our sorrows sleeping. 

Level beauty now serene, 

While hushed is every human calling, 
Mildly gentle Venus shines, 

The fruit thro' scented silence falling. 

All about you now so still 

You hear the hearts of squirrels beating, 
Hear the grass grow 'neath your feet, 

Hear the coming Autumn's greeting, 

Hear the Artist paint the leaves, 

You hear the voice of spirits praying, 
Hear the sap climb up the trees — 

So still she makes it seem while playing. 

Why should language ever speak 

Of all we wish to hear you saying? 

Music breathes your soul so well, 

We '11 wait and listen to the playing. 



22 Evening Bells. 

Weight of years we then forget — 

And join again in childhood's pleasure, 

Once more move to music's glee, 

Nor miss the step or mar the measure. 

If she take some minor strain, 

The sweet, sad days of autumn waking, 

Leaned against the withered years, 
We rest a tired heart that 's aching. 

While with music's magic spell 

The weary hours of age beguiling, 

Sweet, dead faces, dear to me, 

Look backward, and again are smiling. 

Breezes now returning sweet 

With blossoms of life's dewy morning, 

While we breathe their airs afresh, 

Forget the snow-bloom's tender warning. 

Blackboards then for puzzled heads, 

But sounding-boards for heart's revealing. 

Strings across the viol's bridge 

Will lead us to the world of feeling. 

Thus I read your thrilling notes, 
Revealing inward life the clearer. 

Souls are greater than their songs, 

And noble friendships always dearer. 

Lovely soul, thou art so far 

Beyond the purest mind creation, 
Candor gives all merit now 

To you, who gave the inspiration. 



That Player I Heard. 23 

Messenger to future years — 

Since time invites me not to tarry, 

Take for me some greeting, please, 
That years forbid me now to carry. 

Gifts and graces crowned by grace — 

Great means appointed ends assuring — 

Are promised Heaven's showers and dews 
And endless Summer for maturing. 

Lend your birdlike cheer to all, 

And make their heavy burdens lighter, 

Sharing girlhood's sunny Spring 

Will make your Autumn days the brighter. 



SNOW. 

Bewildering the tempest, the snow-gods begin 

A tropic tornado, with crystals stirred in ; 

Through snow-haze that 's falling, Light loses its way, 

In the white night bewildered, man soon goes astray. 

Do snow-flakes in forming take musical laws, 

And follow its strains, without knowing the cause? 

Is crystallized harmony, music in snow ? 

And Winter a tune, like some others we know ? 

Are these frozen tears that the Winter has shed 
O'er the frail, fallen children of Summer now dead? 
The flowers could not drink from a cold, Winter cloud, 
But accepted the gift as their shimmering shroud. 

The colder the night, the more lovely the form ; 
The higher in air, the more glorious the storm : 
The pale infant tints on the drifts down below 
Would brilliantly shine from those turrets of snow. 

In cold, white simplicity soft silence reigns, 
Now hushing all life by the chill in its veins, 
No mischief in clouds so exhausted and low, 
While all forms of life are deep buried in snow. 

24 



Snow. 25 

The sun's arrows flew at the opening of dawn, 
And scattered the shadows that fled like a fawn, 
And away in the distance these wanderers were seen, 
No trace of their footprints were lying between. 

O'er miles of white silence what terrible thrust ! 
Where sunbeams fought crystals and beat them to dust, 
So soon to ascend as a vapor in air, 
Then descend in a rain for the roses to share. 



THE MEETING. 

I met her on a New- Year's eve, 

'Mid mirth and motion's wild delight; 

She wore a robe of shimmering mist, 
And snow and roses lured the sight. 

The jewels in her raven hair 

Bespoke the wearer's wondrous price, 
And in her gracious smile she brought 

Authentic news from Paradise. 

Kind Nature waived her right to wear 
The quiet beauty she possessed. 

To woman she resigns it all, 

Saying, "Take it ; it becomes you best." 

A golden willow in the wind, 
A swallow's easy poise in air, 

The floating drapery of dreams, 
Are emblems of a grace so rare. 



t> j 



Bewitching glances of those eyes, 
As thoughtlessly their arrows fly, 

You wish would smile approval next, 
Or pierce you deep enough to die. 
26 



The Meeting. 29 

I saw in beauty's power to sway, 

How nature's axioms often slip 
And strong convictions melt away, 

When sunned in such warm fellowship. 

Light gambols in her crystal flesh, 
And this her blushing blood attests : 

That on the fount from which it came 
No hidden shadow ever rests. 

The crimson that suffused the snow 

So tenderly in this fair face 
Gave bonds for childish innocence, 

And pledged her to the noblest race. 

I felt unspeakable content, 

A calm I could not well define, 
Not even burthened by a hope 

That such a being could be mine. 

I saw her as I saw a star 

That lights the evil and the good ; 
Too far removed from human hearts, 

To ever feel their changing mood. 

Such dignity and self-repose, 

Such anchorage in the temperate zone, 
Of conscious triumph all at rest, 

Gave her perspective all her own. 

Those bright ideals souls pursue, 

And think till heaven they must defer, 

About which poets dream and sing, 
Seemed now, to me, fulfilled in her. 



30 Evening Bells. 

Her pure sweet ways might bring reproof, 
Yet man would take it as a boon ; 

That came like fragrance from a flower; 
He 'd blame his conscience just as soon. 

You say that beauty made so rare 
No other eyes would ever see ; 

Yet do n't say I exaggerate, 
I show it as it came to me. 

As light of the rebuking morn 

Gave warning of approaching day ; 

I wondered why from scenes so bright 
I took such heavy thoughts away. 

The soul of music set afloat, 

Now my belated hours redeems ; 

And passing the sealed gates of sense, 
Still echoes in the land of dreams. 

They say that music is not heard 
In hours of sleep, and so it seems 

Sweet harmony does not become 
The incoherent world of dreams ; 

But when along with sleep there came 
That face that seemed so near divine, 

It altered all the laws of sleep, 

And changed all former dreams of mine. 

How strange this woman's paradox ! 

Her scorn that turns your hopes to dust 
Will pierce you, while it captivates 

And draws you nearer by its thrust ! 



The Meeting. 31 

How versatile such powers must be 
To still maintain their ancient reign, 

And use such weapons in their turn, 
As winning smiles and cold disdain. 

You ask why one should linger thus 

And range so very far and wide — 
There 's ocean impulse in the theme 

That bears me on its time and tide. 

There 's not a little bird that sings, 

No star of all those worlds above, 
No breeze that goes so softly by, 

But speaks to me of her I love. 

I know not whether other worlds 

Confirm at last the hopes of this, 
And souls so dear to us below, 

We there may meet again in bliss ; 

But this sweet hope will still allure 

The same as in the days of yore, 
That Paradise now holds the one 

That Heaven and I have called "Lenore." 



LIGHT. 

The sand-blast on the window-pane, 
Raining its noisy granite showers, 

While shielding from the glare of day, 
Weaves sunbeams into crystal flowers. 

Mysterious light ! thou God ,of day 

Must take the path that man proposes, 

Greet him through banks of green and gold 
Or through the lilies and the roses. 

Thou little traveler from the sun, 

That came through realms of deepest night, 
And shivered with intensest cold — 

How could you keep your way aright? 

I wonder how you ever pass 

The frowning bastions tempests rear, 
That stand confronting day with night, 

Cloud-pickets on the world's frontier? 

O little newsboy from the sun, 

With records of your fatherland, 

How could you write in words so plain 
That other worlds could understand? 

3 2 



Light. 33 

What wizard art do you possess ? 

How are your little pockets fixed 
That you brought all the rainbow tints 

And never got the colors mixed? 

How did you first braid up that beam 
With rays that show you where to go, 

And those that warm you when you 're cold, 
And those that make the pansies grow ? 



"VIVE, ESPANIA!" 
1898. 

"Vive, Espania \" is your war-cry still. 

The questioning ages are asking why? 
If nothing to show for the wasted years, 

Is it not nobler for you to die? 

You 've claimed men's homes without consent, 
Then made them your subservient slaves, 

And when they asked to share your good, 

You 've rilled their land with nameless graves. 

Were each to wear his sorrow's weeds, 

Dark clouds of sackcloth soon would surge 

And drown earth's music everywhere, 
In wailings of death's mournful dirge. 

Strange foster-mother you have been ! 

On leaving your delusive charms, 
Your children give their last life's blood, 

To tear themselves from out your arms. 

You 're out of time with Nature's psalm ; 

And must pull up those slackened strings, 
Till heaven's minstrelsy accords, 

Or cease to play with him who sings. 

34 



( i 



Vive, Espania!" 35 



To approach God on the challenge side, 
To mortals means consuming fire ; 

A victory won for evil ends 

Means desolation still more dire. 

You 're running on God's thunder roads, 
Where angry lightnings clear His way; 

Where stars may fall, and stubble burn, 
And nations perish in a day. 

Sad memories gladly let you die. 

Such records were not made to last; 
Untimely graves are not the urns, 

Where men preserve their hallowed past. 

God's unoffending creatures, made 

And kept alone for human good, 
Tortured to death in cruel ways, 

To stimulate your thirst for blood. 

Young children brought from mother's smiles, 
To harden in the sports of Spain, 

See beasts of burden gored to death, 

And bellowing bulls enraged with pain. 

Like mad men hurling thunderbolts. 

Convulsion fits, with reason lost, 
That sow the whirlwinds as they pass, 

And reap their harvests brown with frost. 

The Pagan taught us scorn of death; 

The Christian love of noble life, 
Strait gates and narrow ways laid out 

The only sanctioned fields of strife. 



36 Evening Bells. 

Blue flashes of derisive flame 

Should often make you stop and think 
How near you Ve run delusion's dream 

To national ruin's yawning brink. 

Will you now pause and change your aims 
For nobler ones designed to save, 

Or must this train of funeral grief 
Move onward to a nation's grave? 



TO OUR BOY UPON LEAVING US FOR THE 

WEST. 

Out of the quiet harbor of home 

Into the open sea, 
To grasp the helm with your own right hand, 
And steer away to Fancy's land, 

And the good that 's yet to be. 

Joy to the barque with shimmering sail, 

And captain brave and true ! 
Lights may go out that were once your guide, 
Channels fill with the drifting tide, 

But the port will be free to you. 



TO OUR BOY UPON LEAVING US FOR 
HEAVEN. 

That beautiful barque I wished so well 

Sank in a distant sea. 
Lights from the ship, instead of the shore, 
Are now gone out for evermore ; 

Yet it is not dark to me. 

The sails were furled, but the barque went down 

Ere the wane of a single moon. 
God's chariot kind swung low that day, 
Rescued the soul from claims of clay, 
And landed it in the noon. 
37 



CLOSED EYES. 

WRITTEN FOR MISS ALMEDA C. ADAMS, OF CLEVELAND, OHIO. 



DEDICATED 



©o all raijo roatt 

At "fftfe's strut gate." 

When unseen hands on inward bells, 

Have rung the close of Nature's feast, 
And gentle fingers, lifting lids, 

Show light's dim pencilings in the east, 
And when my helmless barque again 

Has touched the shores of conscious mind, 
And I behold earth's loveliness — 

I grieve, dear one, that thou art blind. 

I 've seen in heaven's restful blue 

Such depths as painters never gave, 
Stars bright enough for ancient gods — 

Obedient as an Eastern slave. 
And when the lightning holds its torch 

Before the gloomy face of night, 
Or sunset's burning cities glow — 

I 've wished your eyes might know the light. 

38 



Closed Eyes. 39 

I Ve watched the evening's transient blush, 

The chaste flash from the diamond's eyes, 
The shadows pale on drifting snows, 

And heaven's blue made from all her dyes, 
The stealthy warmth in the lily's bell, 

The cautious dawn of early light, 
The jewels drip from the boatman's oar — 

And longed for you to grasp the sight. 

But O, the city's nether night ! 

While glow the stars in night's blue urn, 
The fallen throng the dens of shame, 

Sick life blasphemes till the morn's return, 
Gaunt hunger cowers in lairs of straw, 

Thick curtained round by dismal night, 
The banquet mad leaves reason fled — 

'T is well you never saw that sight. 

The rosy bloom of maidenhood 

Is struck with death! the eye's love-light 
Reflecting seas of nether fire, 

Without a blush for the direful blight. 
Of all the grief of this sad life 

On which my thought has ever dwelt, 
The one I 'd wish to keep from you, 

Is one the sufferer never felt. 

In an alley foul I saw a child 

So pale and pinched the little face, 
But sweet content in the hazel eyes 

Looked out at me, and he smiled with grace 
As he turned again to play with straws, 

And toss foul dust on the poisoned wind, 
And I saw his playful, unconscious want — 

For once I was glad that you were blind. 



40 Evening Bells. 

A little shell-dweller in wind-roiled sea 

Was tossed with the shingle about the strand. 
As he watched the commotion from doors ajar, 

There drifted in one grain of sand. 
It chafed his life to constant pain, 

No help could be found in all the deep, 
So he covered the wound with a lovely pearl ; 

And then he could rest and went to sleep. 

When the light went out of your young eyes, 
And fountains where you drank so much 

Were parched glebes in memory's waste, 

And you only knew what hands could touch. 

Through your Gethsemane of tears, 

' You covered the wound with so rare a gem, 

That we who see the farthest here 

Would fain exchange for your diadem. 

I sometimes ask does conscious loss 

In life's lone hours still make you weep, 
Or have you soothed the pain so long 

It 's quite worn out and gone to sleep ? 
Do blinded eyes, like palsied lips, 

Still yearn forever to possess, 
As love prompts them to speak to us 

Of what they never can express? 

O ! what a resurrection day, 

The day of death will be to you ! 
Dead firmaments and buried suns, 

As if created, come to view. 
The face, long kissed, but never seen, 

Will glow in heavenly vision clear, 
While glances interpenetrate, 

And make the union doubly dear. 



Closed Eyes. 41 

If some similitude comes to you, 

Through perfume's breath or taste or sound, 
Of many hues that nature wears, 

As seasons go their happy round, 
And the mind records whate'er it saw 

Through the kindly aid of a kindred sense ; 
Does it stay just as it 's written down, 

And speak in the same old mode and tense ? 

Has morning's dawn its glory still? 

Is it the same it used to be, 
Or is there something sadder now, 

Just as there is with us who see? 
Is something gone from hill and wood, 

You used to see in days gone by, 
That never comes to greet you now, 

And never stopped to say good-bye? 

I can not now tell just the time 

When spring grew old and looked effete, 
And the sun that gave it blush and bloom 

Began to look cold and obsolete. 
But while I gazed its beauty fled, 

And in the place came nothing new, 
The sun appeared a weary jade, 

I wonder, is it so with you? 

If life's experience could but tell 

Of many a broken and useless link, 
You 'd know the time of vision here 

To be much shorter than you think. 
You 'd know that long — O, very long — 

Before the spirit takes its flight, 
The last connecting link is snapped 

Between the longing soul and sight. 



42 Evening Bells. 

You 'd know the spirit's flattening lens 

But calls for distance more and more, 
Till nothing focalizes well 

This side the far, eternal shore. 
At last when Hope the night-watch takes, 

And seeks what Heaven pronounces best, 
She soon invests it with a charm 

That far eclipses all the rest. 

And if, at portals of the light, 

You never may be welcomed here, 
And weary and heart hungry still, 

You offer up your silent prayer, 
If nights be long and dreary yet 

That never pledge a coming morn, 
And latent powers restless lie, 

Like spirits waiting to be born ; 

If this bright way must be denied, 

And yet another one be left, 
If that 's a warm and sunny one 

Your heart will not be quite bereft ; 
For though we never see so far 

As looking through a human tear, 
The resting place of agony 

Is by a loved one's listening ear. 

If hearts may reach their tendrils out, 

And clasp the objects they desire, 
And thoughts, like sun-bent eagles, soar 

On their celestial wings of fire, 
I pray that you be grateful still 

For all the thorny way you Ve trod, 
While loss has human sympathy, 

And the pure in heart see God. 



THE WAY OF TRUST. 

DEDICATED TO MISS ELIZA W. WALKDEN. 

How OFT I 've said the next glad year 

Will bring relief. 
The hopeful seasons went and came, 
I trusted in their Author's Name, 
But at the end found just the same, 

Abiding grief. 

Such pain would never go beyond 

Another year. 
I trusted still the times would change, 
Or I should get beyond the range 
Of needed discipline so strange, 

Without a cheer. 

But when the next New- Year had found 

The burden there ; 
Such strange misgivings o'er me crept, 
Sad dreams disturbed me while I slept, 
So oft I laid awake and wept, 

Or offered prayer. 

Wearied I asked, "Can this be night 

Without a morn ?" 
"Deficient grace," the tempter said ; 
"Efficient grace," my spirit plead ; 
"Sufficient grace," Christ wrote instead; 

And left the thorn. 

43 



44 Evening Bells. 

"In weakness comes your perfect strength 

And then alone. 
This weakness is your richest dower, 
For I reserve my greater power, 
To help you in the dying hour, 

Then will I come." 

Now all on which I ever leaned 

Seemed turned to dust. 
But through a sorrow, once accepted, 
Relief unasked, and none expected, 
At last I learned, as I reflected, 
The way of trust. 



6223 



TIDES. 

The: gentle goddess of the night 

Draws oceans o'er the barring beach ; 

In vivid beauty and to heights 

The wildest storms could never reach. 

So seas of inward passion rise 
As gently as the dew distills ; 

And covering wastes of barren sand, 

Make new shore-lines against the hills. 




BIRDS. 



AN IDYL. 



DEDICATED TO MISS GRETNA WESTERVELT, DENVER, COLORADO. 



Dear little nightingale, poised on the wing ; 
Houseless and homeless, I wonder you sing ! 
Have you no care for the Winter to come? 
Can you make any place seem like a home ? 

45 



46 Evening Bells. 

Passionless, penniless, bubbling with joy, 
Aimless and blameless your life can not cloy. 
Resting or nesting on some little bough, 
Making no plans, for your future is now. 

Weaving or coloring never vex you, 
Under your old dress you 've always a new. 
Fitting all seasons and fashioned with grace, 
Worn in all lands as a badge of your race. 

Down on your bosom, and cushioned on air, 
Swiftly you fly, and the tempest you dare. 
Singing the songs that you sang long ago, 
Cheerfully giving us all that you know. 




Dipping your wings in the foam of the sea, 
Folding them up in the shade of a tree ; 
Calling up nations for doing their best, 
Singing the drowsy ones softly to rest. 



Wittily, prettily chatting all day, 

Cooing and wooing your own pleasant 
way: 

Darting and flirting and singing be- 
times 

Musical rhythms without any rhymes. 



Wondrously made are those bright, little eyes, 
Watching a sparrow-hawk 'way in the skies ; 
Close to your feet see the tiniest seed 
Taking for food or health just what you need. 



Birds. 



47 




Slenderly fashioned and made for 

the skies, 
Tenderly tinted with so many 

dyes; 
Traveling at leisure thro' so many 

springs, 
Gladdening the weary with songs 

upon wings. 



Arrowy flying, and such liquid notes, 
Graces of wing, and such musical throats ; 
Are you not conscious that you are observed, 
Audiences keeping you ever thus nerved ? 



Portable ecstasies always on hand, 

Ready for use at the slightest de- 
mand; 

Though you do n't usually sing in 
the rain, 

Little else dampens your musical 
vein. 




Jolly young sailor boys, owning your boat, 
The lightest and fleetest of any afloat ; 
Brief bills of lading your voyages afford, 
Rations all furnished and music on board. 




Sessions for counsel you hold in the 

trees, 
Perfect your plans, and you 're off on 

the breeze ; 
No one with heartaches, and no one 

with scars, 
No one is wounded by family jars. 



48 Evening Bells. 

Fortune's chance guests, without shelter or home, 
No one to claim you and call you his own ; 
Liberal grants in the regions above, 
Give to your warbling world tokens of love. 

Coming with verdure means coming with song, 
Joys of the springtime we Ve waited for long ; 
Dresses for nature are all of them new, 
Birdlings in downy nests waiting for you. 




THE TRIBES. 



Mocking bird, joyously wandering the blue, 
Miles of lone silence made vocal by you ; 
Whip-poor-will, warbling your praise to the King, 
Vacancy pulsing with life on the wing ; 

Nightingale, pressing your warm, brooding heart 
On lifeless blue eggs to give pinions a start; 
Storms flying ever on wild, broken wings, 
Find you still sheltering your dear little things. 



Birds. 49 

O snow birds ! can you be the children of snow ? 
You come with the storms, and depart as they go ; 
Is something peculiar in set of your sail, 
You feel so at home in a cold, winter gale ? 



Is nature volcanic and covering so warm, 
You spend your vacations by sporting in storm ? 
Hopping and flying, you sing as you go, 
Shaking out music right into the snow. 

Carrier bird for emergencies made, 
Taking to air in an earthly blockade ; 
Folded so softly beneath your frail wings, 
Tidings you brought of the contraband things. 

Tiniest humming-bird, loneliest of all, 
Eagles that venture the farthest from call ; 
Mysteries dwelling between these extremes 
Compass your singing and all of its themes. 



50 Evening Bells. 



YOUR MISSION. 

Winter is conquered, the long journey past. 
Lonely from absence, you greet us at last; 
Outbursts of verdure and outbursts of song, 
Bring their relief for a Winter so long. 

April, the season of smiles and of tears, 
Budding and singing, has cheered us for years : 
Gone is the Summer, and Nature now grieves 
For snatches of song, that are faded like leaves. 

Winter and silence — save birds of the snow, 
Meeting and parting our story below ; 
Better for seeing you, sad when you 're gone, 
Always rejoice at your early return. 



<S$Z3 



CHILDREN OF BEAUTY. 

Pictures of beauty, now mounted on air, 
Changed every moment for others as rare; 
Minstrels in gold from the soft Southern isles, 
Blushing to purple in sunlight's glad smiles. 

Blossoms on pinions adorning the sky, 
Stars in the sunshine that burn as you fly; 
Taking earth's harvests wherever they grow, 
All of these harvests are welcome to you. 



Birds. 



5i 



SONGSTERS' GRIEF. 

Flying in sunny skies, can you know grief? 
Burdened or saddened, O ! what 3 s your relief ? 
Slighted or cheated, what then do you do? 
Has the kind Father some soothing for you? 

"Robbing our nests when the season is past, 
Building and brooding for nothing at last; 
Little ones roaming return never more, 
Leaving the mother heart stricken and sore. 

Sickly while moulting we pine for a day, 
Out with new dresses we can but be gay ! 
Flying away then to scenes that are new, 
Changes will help us just as they do you. 

Mated for once we are mated for life; 
Bird-love do n't change as in your human strife. 
Though widely ranging, we never forget, 
All else may change, but we never regret. 

Guiding dominions or managing thrones, 
Care for the sparrow our good Father owns; 
Provident arms of love reaching us all, 
Into those arms of love gladly we fall." 




THE PARLEY IN EDEN. 

Sweet Eve has an inquiring mind, 

That gives research no time for resting. 

She wants to know just what is new, 
And prove its excellence by tasting. 

"The secret 's out about that tree, 
I own, I really can't abide them." 

The apples hung so temptingly 

She just reached up one day and tried them. 

"I 'm very willing to submit 

To any rational condition, 
But think of God creating apples 

Subject to such prohibition ! 

I took one — and the consequence — 

And that was what made all the bother "; 

God said that if I took the one, 

I 'd surely have to take the other. 

Just think of hanging apples out, 

The very kind that I 've been wanting, 

I '11 have my liberty or death — 

I say it — and without repenting." 

And so God drove them from their home, 
Both Adam and his scornful Madame, 

Along a way as hard to-day, 

Or even harder than Mc Adam's. 
52 



The Parley in Eden. 53 

"Sweet Eve, since I have lost my job 

I scarce know where we 'd best be going." 

"Go West, young man, go West," she said, 
"The same as all the world is doing. 

I 'm very certain, Adam dear, 

If women had the right of voting 
They 'd not be married when they 're made, 

And so miss all the bliss of courting. 

And since you ate that apple, sir, 

And God so hastily dismissed me, 
You Ve scarce looked up at me or smiled, 

And I am sure you have n't kissed me." 

"My dear, a righteous man can't rest 

Just after he has been arrested : 
A jovial man can never jest 

Until his dinner is digested." 



ANSWER TO A CHILD'S WISH THAT I ALWAYS 
REMAIN YOUNG. 

You ask that flowers shall bloom in Fall, 
That life once lived shall be lived again; 

That the day have no calm, evening close, 
Or life's prayer come to its sweet Amen. 

You wish life's wine to be always new, 

To sparkle and foam in the working stage, 

I am content if it 's calm and still, 

And will only rest and improve with age. 

You wish our good to be ever good. 

And mingled ill oft causes wonder, 
I 'm glad if furrows that plowed so deep 

Turned both the weeds and roses under. 

Life 's sunburnt mirth needs evening shade, 

And joys pursued ask joys at rest 
In quiet harbors safe at last, 

Where light subdued need never fade. 

I Ve seen flowers made by the Christmas frosts, 
And hung as fair as in Eden's bowers; 

But when the sun kissed them they blushed and died, 
For it was not the time of flowers. 

54 



Answer to a Child's Wish. 55 

Through the fruit you hang on a Christmas-tree 
The tropics may send us their warm salute, 

But we know that there it could never have grown, 
For it is not the time for fruit. 

There are April showers for early buds, 
And sunny June for the perfect flower, 

October's calm for the fading leaves, 

And December's chill for the dying hour. 

The Springtime comes with its life and growth, 
And the waning Summer fades at length, 

The blossoms die and the leaves are sere — 

But there stands the harvest in all its strength. 

My conflict 'twixt Summer and Winter is past, 

I rest in the Autumn's golden smile ; 
Borne on in calm to the Infinite, 

And listening to music all the while. 

The birds, whose only mission is song, 

Will sing no more if the Springtime fade ; 

But without regret for a Summer gone, 
Can fly to another ready made. 

If I can't sing as the birds do now, 

Or laugh with the merry child at play, 

When days of cheap felicities pass, 

And fruition comes, perchance I may. 





DAISIES. 



FOR MARIE. 



Dear Jimmie, when your dimpled hands 

First brought me pretty daisies, 
And smiling, laid them in my lap, 

Then waited for my praises, 
And love's young flame began to light 

Those eyes of heaven's blue — 
I scarce knew whether I was I 

Or whether I was you. 
56 



Daisies. 

And those sweet smiles are living still 

In memory's happy hazes. 
But while I walk the earth alone, 

You sleep beneath the daisies. 
As evening shadows now grow long 

And damp with evening dew, 
I sadly know that I am I, 

Since earth has sheltered you. 



57 




THE PEACE CONFERENCE. 

A worIvD-powicr asks a world disarmed. 
But should our hopes deceive our trust, 
And justice fail to guard the just, 
Wrong might be strengthened, right be harmed. 

Our Heaven is an armed estate — 
But all remedial measures first, 
And not till worse has come to worst, 
Do ultimatums point to fate. 

Man listens when the storm arrives. 
He hears not nature's gentler hints, 
But stops to read the coarser prints, 
That come from torn and tragic lives. 

Will right and reason reign at last? 
Can Western stars cleanse Eastern sight, 
And spike her battle guns with light, 
As relics of a banished past? 

When cannon roar and shell are hurled, 
A white flag seen in battle smoke 
Will hush them all as if God spoke. 
Who fires again insults the world. 

A pure ideal, once it floats, 
Will rise to realms of upper air, 
And hold an elevation there, 
Beyond the reach of shots or votes. 

58 



MOSES, THE MAN OF GOD. 

O thou strong man of God: and thou firm friend of man, 
These titles are justly inscribed on thy throne. 

While we ponder the best that our earth ever gave, 
Colossus of Time we now joyfully crown. 

Thou heroic old Hebrew, thou giant of earth ! 

Ivike high jutting peak on a desert of gloom, 
Israel's stalwart young guide to a future so dark, 

It made of that desert a national tomb. 

A wise doctor in laws that the angels ordained ; 

Thy court in the clouds and thy school in the rocks ; 
Thou art Heaven's own advocate pleading for men, 

Mild shepherd of Israel, feeding its flocks. 

A bright meteor, kindled with fire from the skies, 
To light the dark night of a nation of slaves, 

When oppression so cruel and bondage so hard, 
Were slowly preparing their sorrowful graves. 

The Divine spake to others by angels in dreams, 
With Moses in Hebrew, conversed face to face. 

He had heard God's own accents in language he knew, 
And thus stands alone among all of our race. 

He 's the safe, trusted witness of that burning bush, 
The pillar of cloud and the mountain of flame, 

And all other red symbols Jehovah had used 

To write on man's bosom His wonderful Name. 

59 



60 Evening Bells. 

Moses stood for a fact, like the mountains he saw, 

His eye cleansed by lightning for visions to come; 

Of an infinite shadow the warm human side 

Projected through ages and pointed with doom. 

An embodiment stern of high Heaven's just ire, 
A loved brother, close to his fellow-men bound; 

If you search for one pleading both sides of a case, 
O, where in the world will another be found? 

The brave man held a sword with a keen double edge, 
Embossed with "God's Heart" and "Humanity's Cry," 

He would strike Heaven's foes in the heart of a man, 
Or plead for his pardon, though he were to die. 

And although so insistent God's laws be obeyed, 

He asked his own name be erased from His Book, 

If no way could be found to still pardon their sins, 
And they feel the joy of His reconciled look. 

When or where were the interests of heaven and earth, 

So firmly united in one human soul, 
With a wisdom so affable, power so meek, 

Or leadership under such perfect control? 

On the wild, dizzy heights of some lone mountain crag, 
Among the coarse sticks, bright-eyed eaglets will nest; 

The moan of the winds and the hoarse thunder's roar 
The rude lullaby that their infancy rest. 

With a hard fate like this, their stern natures will rear 
Firm nerve and strong wing that we know will not fail 

To soar far above storms to those skies always clear, 
Or sport with the clouds in a passionate gale. 



Moses, the Man of God. 61 

God left Moses alone with thorn blossoms and stars 
In vast, voiceless solitudes hushed as the night, 

Save the music of winds and the distant sea's roar, 
And bleak desolation forever in sight. 

With no books but the ones that kind Nature had given, 
No witness but Eyes that had never known sleep, 

And this scholar, this leader, this child of the waste, 
Had no one to counsel and no one to weep. 

In the long years of silence, his thought outgrew speech, 
This power to inspire and this wall of defense, 

That had bound men together with adamant chains, 
Refused to this leader in any high sense. 

Thus he seemed sent to show what true meekness in man 

The Seer, the Doer, with Sayer left out, 
Could accomplish for us by the character's power, 

While thought ever played upon strings that were mute. 

All our deep inspirations are frightened by crowds. 

Great souls must be driven to some lonely moor, 
For our purest ideals in vacancy root, 

The spirit world opens as we close the door. 

The tears dried on his heart, and no mention was made 
Of death's lone farewell, that would come the next day : 

With farewells to the clouds and the voice of his God, 
Farewell to his people and farewell to clay. 

On his vast dying chamber a soft hush there fell, 
With Angels above it and mourners below, 

A sad farewell reception with tears in the vale, 
And welcome preparing for God to bestow. 



62 Evening Bells. 

Then a still, shoreless plaintiveness hallowed the air; 

Lifelong self-surrender had conquered the crowd, 
And lifeblood of the race leaped up newly inspired 

As light's slanting javelins pierced the dark cloud. 

Whether meeting throned kings or winged serpents of fire, 
Ever patiently hoping that all would be well, 

While confronting the many or dying alone, 
With courage he stood and with dignity fell. 

With Elijah and Christ on that mountain so blest, 
Again back to earth for a very brief stay, 

In thy Canaan at last, and long centuries past, 
And Heaven itself taken in on the way ! 

His tall height now across the long ages is seen. 

His life a whole nation's one lone, central theme; 
While the rays that fall level from his manly brow 

Touch none but the God-man's, who died to redeem. 

O, that veiled face of splendor from bosom of clouds, 
Was tinged just enough with the frailties of men, 

To make God's approach cautious in coming to us, 
So tables of stone had a welcome Amen. 

Still a petrified nation is clinging to laws 

Once traced by his fingers on tables of stone, 

That are changeless as rocks on which they were penned, 
A granite memorial of work so well done. 

Driven into all lands and among all strange men, 
Dashed into the sea and yet not of the sea, 

This poor sorrowful Jew, now a byword with all, 
Has never yet lost veneration for thee. 



Moses, the Man of God. 63 

Like a beacon he stood to illumine the host, 

And kept a warm heart that their lives would inspire, 
Like a volcanic island in cold, polar floods, 

Though girdled by ice is yet crested by fire. 

In an epochal season, when changes must come, 

^ Some soul large in feeling and courage as brave 
Will be kept for an urn, in which Heaven can place 
All good of the past that it wishes to save. 

His close commerce with God and. devotion to men, 
No money to buy or persuasion to draw, 

Was the pivot on which a lone nation of slaves 
Swung round to a future of order and law. 

When inspired by his privilege, his soul rising up 

Would sometimes seem counseling the Ancient of Days ; 

"O, do not bring disgrace on Thy glorious throne !" 
Man's own mediator in earnestness prays. 

The Creation reviewed with no word of surprise, 
Our sad fall rehearsed with no word of regret, 

A meek child seemed relating the story he 'd heard, 
Not changing one word of the copy God set. 

When Jehovah has loyalty fair in the wind, 

With all the sails set for a breeze of His breath, 

And the seas of eternity lying ahead, 

The Giver of Life is the Conqueror of Death. 

When kind Heaven would send some new truth among men, 
Incarnates it first in some one favored son. 

To be just to the ones that such burdens must bear, 
God often puts two or three souls into one. 



64 Evening Bells. 

To be lonely is leadership's own, native lot. 

Full commerce with followers never is found, 
For the gifts that have placed him alone at the front, 

Have fixed the firm law which his being has bound. 

He was lonely in Egypt and lonely in flight, 
Alone in the wilderness feeding his flocks, 

Then alone upon Sinai, lonely in death, 

No friend at his burial, his grave in the rocks. 

He had counseled and buried a nation he loved, 

And now he must die with loved Canaan in view, 

And surrender the only bright dream of his life, 
And sleep with the traitors instead of the true. 

Sole lord of those millions, thy scepter as certain 

Through all their long exile as when they left home, 

Still held by thy bond as a separate nation, 
To return yet to Zion in ages to come. 

O, could we have the pith of his primeval days ! 

We always grow stronger as on them we dwell, 
May his mantle fall on us, imparting his grace, 

As with awe and reverence we bid him farewell. 



MY LITTLE PLAYMATE. 

'T is sixty years since Cloe and I, 
Two little mates, went hand in hand, 
To gather beechnuts in the woods, 
And think some thoughts that never die. 




Through love's clear light, in childhood's morn, 
We never saw the gulf between 
The boy that lived on rented soil - 
And girl 'i was to the manor born. 

65 



66 Evening Bells. 

Of God's warm earth he owned no part ; 
And so the ruthless hand of change, 
Without a thought of childish pain, 
Took him away and left his heart. 

Sweet childhood loves, in youth's bright May ! 
Who has not wished in after years 
His wise attachments all had been 
As free from dross and pure as they ! 



<sS£S 



THE SWEET, SAD YEARS. 

The: sweet, sad years are passing, 
With all their wealth of store. 

They pause to ask my greeting, 
But ask for nothing more. 

The sweet, sad years are passing, 
Friends make it dear to live, 

With weakness ever asking, 
But little strength to give. 

The sweet, sad years are passing, 
With mingled cheers and tears, 

And when I meet them at review — 
I bless the sweet, sad years. 



A FATHER GONE. 

When our fortune was gone, 
And our father was dead, 
And' mother sat there 

In her tokens of woe ; 
And we fronted the world 
With a tremulous dread, 
With no place to stay 

And with nowhere to go. 

There were none of us knew 
What those provident hands 
Had done for us all 

In the days of our youth ; 
It had come so in silence 
Without our demands, 
Till death's revelations 

Had brought us the truth. 

He commended to God, 
In his last dying prayer, 
The loved of his heart 

With such tender request, 
And those poor withered hands 
Had looked never so fair, 
As when folded at last 

On that generous breast. 
67 



68 Evening Bells. 

Then we took the dear books 
He had studied so long, 
And sold them for just 

What a stranger would give ; 
For the times were now hard 
And the winter was long, 
And a way must be found 

For our mother to live. 

Then a note from the teacher 
All blotted with tears, 
Full of grief at the thought 

Of our going away ; 
But the mortgage was closed 
And they 'd taken our home, 
So we 'd no place to go, 

And we 'd nowhere to stay. 



(3^3 



A VARIED MINISTRY. 

From the same flowers by the wayside, 
The spider gets his poison, 
The bee collects his honey, 
The butterfly gets nothing, 
And woman gets her match. 



TROUBLE AND NIGHT. 

Some insects venture out at night, 

But never in the open day ; 
Upon the first approach of morn, 

They seek retreat and hide away. 

So trouble hides in all our souls, 

Through sunshine and our working hours, 
Without a single stir of wing, 

Till night invites its dreaded powers. 

When sleep relieves the mind from care, 
And instinct's pilot takes the helm, 

Whichever way the wind or tide, 

We 're drifting to the trouble realm. 

O'er our lost Eden, now restored, 

We revel in a borrowed bliss : 
Then wake again in real life 

To what we have and what we miss. 

The heart and hands are thus divorced. 

We live a double life always ; 
One life for nights, with sleep or pain, 

Another for our working days. 



69 



LOVE NOT THE WORLD. 

LiF^S day was softening toward the West, 
The evening hours came on with haste, 
The smiling world became a waste, 
And offered me no place of rest. 

What I had loved with all my heart, 
And now at last deceived me so, 
Was built to stay, and I to go, 
So loved and lover now must part. 

What can I do with my false bride? 
Shall I repentant seek divorce, 
Or still pursue my deadly course, 
And boast her beauty, nurse my pride ? 

My love — the World — died on the street: 
When placed in morgue for friends to claim, 
Not one of all her kindred came 
To own her in the lone retreat. 

And she who boundless power could wield, 
In coffin plain and cheapest shroud, 
Unnoticed by the passing crowd, 
Was buried in the potter's field. 



70 



A NOVEMBER BIRTHDAY. 

The: bees had ceased humming, 
And gone to their rest ; 
The great frosted maples 

Were dropping their leaves, 
The squirrels had laid up 
Their store for the cold, 
And the swallows had gone 

From their nests in our eaves, 
When another sweet birdling 

There came to our nest, 
And asked for a place 

In our hearts with the rest. 

A mother lay dreaming 
Her beautiful dream ; 
The home was so cozy, 

The bosom so warm, 
The dear little sleeper 
Smiled on in her sleep ; 
Heeding not the approach 

Of that terrible storm. 
Thus caressed and content, 

She was perfectly blessed. 
Instinct served the present, 

She trusted the rest. 

That mother was smitten 
By the Angel of pain ; 
The storm was so fearful, 
The rage was so wild, 
The physician looked on 
With his pained, anxious face. 

7i 



72 Evening Bells. 

"We can scarcely save both 

Of them, mother and child :" 

So our baby we sent 

To the home of another, 

In hopes of our saving 
The suffering mother. 

Then he took our cold hand, 
As he tenderly said : — 
(For he saw our white faces 

And internal strife) 
"If that mother should once 
Hear her baby's sad cry, 
At a critical moment 

'T would end her frail life." 
So we sent her away, 

With a faltering trust, 
To live if she might, 

Or to die if she must. 

The long, cheerless Winter 

Departed at length, 

The Springtime came back 

With all its old charms, 
And the roses returned 
To the pale mother's face, 
And the Ions: lost babe 

To its mother's fond arms. 
And from April's first showers 

Until early frost 
They spent in redeeming 

The time they had lost. 



WHY DO THE NOBLEST DIE? 

O, could we know the reason why 
Low lives, with little to subsist, 
Through countless ages still persist, 
While those that rise so soon must die ! 

Do mountain winds and purer air 
But work some evil in the blood 
That shorten days and banish good, 
And prove the poison dews our share ? 

^Esthetic Greece and regal Rome, 
Whose laws and language we pursue, — 
Death claimed them long ago her due, 
And struck their glory from its throne. 

While China, groveling in the dust, 
Rejecting aid, refusing truth, 
Fresh with three thousand years of youth, 
Lives on, and lives because she must. 



75 



MY COUNTRY. 

My country — what a gift is thine ! 
To love and bear a nation's name, 
And share its honor or its shame, 
Should make the human half divine. 

Born of the noblest strain of blood 
And placed in heaven's belt of power, 
'T is plain the heirs of such a dower 
Have tides of fortune at their flood. 

In lands with birds of every lay, 
Where fruit through scented silence falls, 
That freely answers nature's calls, 
Man sleeps or sins his years away. 

If health then cometh from the North, 
And power dwells in temperate lands, 
Then he who guides with temperate hands 
Is honoring Him who stretched it forth. 

The deep is calling to the deep ; 
Those boisterous beatings of the sea, 
Against long shores that compass thee, 
Now break a thousand years of sleep. 

Thou gift of earth's concluding years ; 
So broad in aims, so great in sins, 
This double portion born as twins, 
Inspires our hopes, excites our fears. 
76 



My Country. yy 

Think not our love is growing cold 
If we should speak of both thine heirs, 
The good and evil now thy shares, 
Or deem that hope has lost its hold. 

Who never sees fair Justice wronged — 
Though hope must ever lead the van, 
And dumb despair can't pilot man, — 
He lives a childhood still prolonged. 

The wise are pondering o'er the plans, 
How best to sow the great unknown 
With seed the past has not outgrown, 
As thoughtless youth becomes the man. 

God called for bids when times were worst 
To take a man just as a man, 
Whichever way his titles ran : 
Columbia took the contract first. 

God takes a lien on what He lends. 
We asked a loan of wealth and force* 
And mortgaged all our future course 
To use it for appointed ends. 

Tradition's stream has left its bed : 
Composite products of the race, 
The gentle mingling with the base 
Bring lessons man had never read. 

With earth invited as a guest, 

If Western winds can sift the good 

And purify this mingled flood, 

'T will be Columbia's noblest test. 



78 Evening Bells. 

Our bands of union need be strong : 

But what neglect disintegrates, 

A nation's love assimilates — 

And thus we bind the mingled throng. 

The diverse to one end conspire, 
When common impulse makes one soul, 
Each feels the greatness of the whole, 
A ragged union, fused by fire. 

As trustees of the Fatherland 
We gladly lay our own lives down, 
And wear its honors as our crown ; 
But make us wards — you break the bond. 

Will Freedom's temple here begun, 
W 7 ith granite firmness at the base, 
That might support the human race, 
Here too receive its last capstone ? 

This lesson comes alike to all, 
The human structure still may rise 
With favored stories next the skies, 
But must together rise or fall. 

With screws beneath the purloin plate, 
The most that you can do at best, 
Is rend the roof and leave the rest — 
'T is written in the book of fate. 

This rent will soon invite the storm ; 
But with your jacks beneath the sills, 
And union of all human wills, 
You raise the temple, kept in form. 



My Country. 79 

If our high aims could still remain, 
Then Freedom's diapason, set 
By fair Columbia, earth may yet 
Consent shall lead her last refrain. 

We stand in Pilate's judgment hall : 
And when the verdict shall be read, — 
Our Calvary may be just ahead, 
And Gold may stand and Freedom fall. 

Fair "Ship of State," thy sacred form 
Should have the good, with their effects, 
As rolling ballast on thy decks, 
To hold thee level in the storm. 

And when these gales have spent their rage, 
The truths they winnow in the blast, 
Unshaken, shall remain at last, 
The landmarks of a coming age. 

O, woman ! hold Columbia dear : 
There are no other skies so blue, 
No other freedom offered you, 
Like that which comes unbidden here. 

If in the capitals of State 
Our hearts should fail at what we see, 
And wonder what the end will be 
Of deeds we care not to relate. 

Yet in the consecrated home 
The bread and water still are blest 
In that dear Name where nations rest, — 
This gives us hope for days to come. 



80 Evening Bells. 

If joys that Nature may impart 
Can make us blest to sow and reap, 
Her throbbing ventricles may keep 
Congestion from the City's heart. 

Faint light that tells a brighter morn 
Anointed eyes have lately seen, 
And think our nights of travail mean 
The nation's soul will be reborn. 

Shall we our glorious task refuse, 
And from our leaderships retreat, 
Adopt what light makes obsolete, 
And buy old clothing of the Jews ? 

"Humanity" our battle cry ! 
Posterity awaits that voice 
That makes the average man its choice, 
And we must speak for him or die. 

Our past was pledged to this one theme : 
And call it dreaming if you must, 
But in the end we have to trust 
The dreamer who believes his dream. 

The past our pastime play of youth ! 
May we not now in wonder ask, 
What yet may be our manhood's task, 
If we but covenant with truth? 

Thou hidden Soul, that builds the frames 
Of all that 's best in Church or State, 
I pray come forth and consecrate 
My Country to her highest aims. 



On the Mountain. 81 

I would that to her queenly prime 
A kind, consenting future give 
Its seal ; and let her glories live 
Beyond the bufferings of time. 

ON THE MOUNTAIN. 

Up above the line of frost 

Where they greeted each new comer, 
With a swirl of sleet and snow 

That I tell you was a hummer, 

There was frost work on the rocks, 

Roses blooming in the valley, 
Inspiration and a chill, 

That made all your powers rally. 

These are regulation chills, 

For the cold is here eternal. 
And the ragged summits rest 

In a zone that 's never vernal. 

Cumulations cold in death, 

Crystals of a rare inventor, 
Hoary heads without a heart, 

Frozen facts in endless winter. 

Then far up above us still, 

Where the sky is blue from bleaching, 
And the firmest courage fell 

At the thought of ever reaching. 



82 Evening Bells. 

Here Jehovah walks alone, 
At forbidden elevation. 

Not a single form of life 

To remind him of creation. 

But our lives were growing cold 
In this great refrigerator : 

So we all let go the pole, 

And we caught on the equator. 



CHILDLESS. 

She; sat by her grate 

While the winds of December 

Were making sad dirge 

In the tall, barren trees ; 
There was something about them 
That bade you remember 
The sailors that travel 

On wintery seas. 

The song birds were making- 
All seasons a Summer, 
And blossoms mid- Winter 

Were adding their cheer; 
While one doting face, 
With its smiles of approval, 
Made heaven seem there, 

Or at least very near. 



Childless. 

"But when Spring returned 
With its budding- and singing, 
I Ve seen her go out 

For the rest of the day, 
And sit all alone 
By some beautiful corso, 
To watch merry children' 

In innocent play. 

Instincts of maternity 

Silently pleading, 

Gave yearning attention 

To those eager eyes ; 
When faces met hers 
With the angel's lost touches, 
That bosom would heave 

With half-audible sighs. 

How blest that each head 
Rests on some loving bosom; 
A mother's fond joy, 

And a father's own pride ! 
We '11 never complain 
Of our gifts or the Giver; 
Yet in homes that are childless 

How much is denies 



83 



THE WEAK MAN. 

He had courage for compliments, if they were sweet, 
And constancy safe for the brighter June days, 

But the least change of weather or critical word, 
And all his weak powers must be put into stays. 

With a mental sign zero, his moral aim fun, 

A light nature builded of froth and of phlegm, 

A chameleon that took every hue of his time, 
Or wanting tints netural, denied each of them. 

O ! give me the Scotchman's strong conscience instead, 
Or the laws of the Medes and the Persians so cold ; 

But come not when tempests are shredding my sails 
With gossamer tissues that never can hold ! 



84 



THAT CAVE. 

DEDICATED TO REV. ROBERT M'lNTYRE, WHOSE LECTURE, "THIRTY HOURS 
IN THE SUNLESS WORLD," INSPIRED THESE VERSES. 

We bade the bright, warm world adieu, 
The doors were closed with iron bands, 

And we were left alone with night — 
Save one frail torch in human hands. 

The "Outer Darkness" oft inspires 

A strange and trembling sense of dread ; 

But here 't is shut in granite walls, 
Stone floors and ceilings overhead ! 

When gloom has liberty in space 

We feel some wandering light may save 

But shut with it in such a cell 

Makes mind and body both a slave. - 

The star-realm, hidden now from view, 

Its azure setting all unseen, 
A universe in dire eclipse, 

The same as if it ne'er had been. 

Fair alabaster beauties rest 

On floor and ceiling white as snow, 

Their stony loveliness so chaste, 

Preserved alike from friend and foe. 
85 



86 Evening Bells. 

These pallid forms seem still content, 
Though clasped in ebon arms of night. 

Calm nature has no caste to place 

The black beneath the dainty white. 

Insolvent shadows here unknown, 

No little thread of wandering light 

Has ever pierced the raven gloom 

That curtains round this thick-ribbed night. 

A hiding place for wrongs to flee, 

Where lights are out, and doors are latched 

A listless, nude vacuity, 

Where night is brewed and dreams are hatched. 

Here nothing blooms and nothing fades, 
But flowers, pressed in books of stone, 

Waste beauty on the desert air : 

For darkness claims them all her own. 

To get impression, lights were blown, 

And sitting in this living tomb 
We thought of those interred alive, 

And stared upon the sullen gloom. 

While listening close we seemed to hear 
Some motion of the faintest kind, 

Like infant fancy's muffled tread 

Through silent chambers of the mind. 

We asked: "What sound can haunt us here? 

Can motion come from death's remains?" 
They tell us that we hear our blood 

On its smooth journey through the veins ! 



That Cave. 87 

I listened to my heart's loud beats, 

Till worn by this dread monotone 
I spoke ; and silence made reply 

By echoes from her lips of stone. 

And when she once more took the helm 

And steered toward night's unfathomed sea, 

I felt its weight was doubled up, 
And every ounce was lain on me. 

No point on which an eye can rest, 

No sound to greet the waiting sense, 

No slightest motion ever made, 

No creature asking your defense. 

No prongs on which to hang a thought, 

The soul is pleading for a sign, 
But cold, unfeeling silence lends 

No answer to this prayer of mine. 

In black-garbed solitude I wait ; 

Raw darkness here refined by age 
Beyond improvement years may bring, 

Has reached infernal grade and gauge. 

While sitting in my grave clothes there, 

The solid earth above my head, 
Partition walls seemed very thin 

Between the living and the dead. 

My nerves, unraveled, lost their strength, 

While darkness made me gasp for breath; 

A land with life and light away 
Is kindred to the world of death. 



88 Evening Bells. 

The Will, ungirded, lying prone, 

Strange mysteries haunt the dread inane ; 

With nerves unstrung and reason strained 
The lonely soul becomes insane. 

Oblivion, waiting restless here, 

And watching for some path of flight, 

The black-plumed charger champs the bits 
That tighten in the teeth of night. 

While now I sit and muse alone 

On emblems of those worlds to come, 

That warn of evil, strengthen good 
By pledges of our final Home, 

Give me alone what seemeth best, 

Let frugal hands arrange my share, 

But let this one condition stand : 

If God be Light — let me be there! 



TIMIDITY. 

She; owned a chime of inward bells 

Divinely sweet, but feared to ring them. 

Her tender soul was full of songs, 

But doubting, she had failed to sing them. 

You better trust your powers too far, 

And sigh that they had proved deceiving, 

Than doubt one gift, that if believed, 

Had blessed the world by your believing. 

WINTER. 

A belated ship on a wintry sea, 

With icy spars and frozen shrouds, 

One leaf still clinging alone to its tree, 
In a driving storm from angry clouds. 

The fields all white and the trees all bare, 
And bleak and cold the deserted nest, 

The ice has hushed the babbling stream, 
Nature herself has lain down to rest. 

But hark ! soft winds blow over the moor, 
Sad and sweet are the tidings they bring ; 

The dirge of a winter so nearly gone, 

And happy heralds of coming Spring. 
89 



THOSE BEAUTIFUL EYES. 

O, those beautiful eyes ! they are ever as new 
As the light of a star in a drop of dew ; 
And since heavenly messengers come no more 
To visit our world as in days of yore, 
The light that falls from that beautiful eye 
I will keep to remember the angels by. 

! the outlook of soul in those beautiful eyes ! 
Like the evening star in our Autumn skies : 

1 as willingly follow their soft-born light 
As the ocean follows the Queen of Night. 
All this effortless grace as unconscious to thee 
As the liquid steps of the obedient sea. 

Man may bend 'neath the weight of a muslin sleeve, 

As he offers an arm to a beautiful Eve, 

And be changed by the touch of that innocent hand 

As a pearl is made from a grain of sand : 

But his ideal day of eternity lies 

In the dawn and the dusk of those beautiful eyes. 



90 



THEN I'M THINKING OF HOME. 

When the relics of Autumn have covered the ground, 
And winds on the moor have their wintery sound, — 
Then I 'm thinking of home. 

When souls that are thoughtless can merrily play 
With tired heart cords in so reckless a way, 
Then I 'm thinking of home. 

When all homebound fancies are floating in dreams, 
And I wake to a world that is not what it seems, 
Then I 'm thinking of home. 

When music that 's made by the harps of the Just 
Allures me to rest on that bosom I trust, 
Then I 'm thinking of home. 



93 



DREAMS. 

Oft as I lie wrapped in slumber 
Dreams come rushing without number, 
As if fugitives from danger 

Fled to my unguarded door. 
I protest their rude intrusion, 
Half insane at their delusion, 
But they laugh at my confusion, 

And come wildly as before. 

Born of falsehood or of fever, 
Sent there by the great Deceiver, 
Vagrant wanderers tramping ever, 

Outlaws from the realm of truth, 
Ghosts from some lost haze-world landed, 
Helmless barques completely stranded, 
Cloud-ship sails all torn and bandied, 

I have known them since my youth. 

Barefoot tread so lightly gliding, 
In sleep's silver meshes hiding, 
They seem hardly worth the chiding, 

Since they Ve really nothing done. 
Touching us so very lightly, 
Waking us but very slightly, 
Whispering in our dull ears nightly, 

Do n't let memory take it down, 

94 



Dreams. 95 

On they come from their air castles, 
Sent from chaos — night's sly vassals, 
Touch your nose with downy tassels, 

Sing to you their airy themes. 
Fireflies guide them as they travel, 
Resting days for midnight's revel, 
First take counsel of the Devil, 

Then confused they come in dreams. 

Worlds where law is no protection, 
All things done without reflection, 
Where June days bring but dejection, 

And the seasons come at will, 
Roses on the cornstalks growing, 
Where night comes with roosters crowing, 
Winds from all directions blowing — 

Go ! — Your mission there fulfill. 



TO MY SISTER. 

Dear sister, you may think it strange 
That down the winding paths of change, 
Where weary feet must always range, 

In age they turn to measure : 
But measured steps have measured thought. 
As nearer to the end we 're brought, 
And miss so much of all we sought, 

We turn to early treasure. 

The setting sun suggests its rise 
As mercy's hands that still chastise 
Recall the means that made us wise, 

And winnowed up the grain : 
So age that 's reached the yellow leaf 
Will be reminded by its grief 
Of those bright days that were so brief, 

And turn to them again. 

The childhood at each end of life, 
Where cheers begin, tears end the strife, 
With morn and evening memories rife, 

Have some mysterious union; 
And so, dear sister; I would learn 
While evening fires still slowly burn 
If failing life may yet return 

To childhood's sweet communion. 
96 



To My Sister. 97 

I Ve sometimes sat alone in tears, 
And listening to the silent years 
Have heard again the ringing cheers 

That advertised our pleasure ; 
And wished again to dream those dreams 
With which a hallowed memory teems, 
As through the gates of morning streams 

That careless day of leisure. 

While none have reached the height of fame, 
Yet none have left a blighted name, 
But left with blessings as they came, 

That justified their coming: 
Those stars that set will rise again, 
While those that fall will not return, 
Their ashes in the wandering urn 

But show a wreck that 's roaming. 

Kind Father, to thy heart receive them, 
Bless the land in which I leave them. 
O ! that I had never grieved them 

On life's stormy way with me. 
Where once I heard their loving tones, 
The Autumn sighs and Winter moans, 
Around the white memorial stones 

That mark their graves in Thee. 

Of those who sang our childish lay 
The better half have passed away, 
While granted our uncertain stay 

They sleep in dear New England : 
However poor thy soil may be, 
Thou art forever dear to me, 
Since these my kindred rest in thee, 

Long-loved, revered New England. 



CLEARER VISION. 

Life's palpitating, azure morn 

Sets beauty in relief, 
Showing all its tender grace 

Without the hidden grief. 

I could not justly see thee then, 

Charmed sense played such a part ; 

But through the vista of the years 
I see thee as thou art. 

First love will oft transfigure flesh; 

To catch those views again 
Requires the same enchanting spell 

Through which I saw them then. 

They say that painters do not rest 

In giving us the real ; 
But add to nature light and shade 

To satisfy ideal. 

Although love's halo make of clay 

A being too divine, 
Still how reluctantly I change 

One lineament of thine ! 



9 3 



ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN IN BEHALF OF A 

SICK CHILD. 

O, winds from the ocean, 

Pray blow not so wildly ; 
My sweet highland Mary has come to thy shore. 

Thy hoarse, heavy breath 

May yet cause her death, 
And what could God's providence ask of us more ? 

She 'd seen thee in fountains 

Far up in the mountains ; 
Thy greeting she 'd heard in the soft summer rain, 

Hanging pendant from dome, 

But she T d see thee at home ; 
Pray try to be gentle that she may remain. 

She 's lived in these altitudes 

Higher and clearer, 
And breathed the high table-land's light, buoyant air. 

Pray don't let one Springtime 

She spends with thee this time 
Make rents that the future can never repair. 

If you must have frolic 

Go out to midocean, 

Have all of the forces at your own command: 

But to my sick child 

I pray you be mild, 

And please to slow up as you come toward the land. 
L.ofv. 



IOI 



102 Evening Bells. 

You Ve sunken whole navies 

When armed for the battle 
By merciless simoom's tumultuous whirl. 

Could it be any pleasure 

To add to such treasure 
The beautiful life of this one frail girl ? 

Go read the wild libraries 

Now in thy bosom ! 
Let clouds hang above thee their darkening pall, 

And smite the dumb shore 

With wild roll and roar, 
But for aught that 's beyond it, do n't ever dare call. 

Your daily, salt breezes, 

Without such commotion, 
Would season the air with a healthful brine ; 

But if you forget, 

And keep up your fret, 
You '11 weary this poor sick child of mine. 

The low, quiet moaning 

O'er bar in the harbor 
Has oft soothed the sufferer's troubled brain ; 

But to drive with a dash 

And a tempest's crash 
When unshackled winds have caught the rein, 

But loosens confusion 

And spreads desolation, 
Till out of wild dreams and a short, fitful sleep 

We waken in fear, 

But only to hear 
The wild winds at war on the angry deep. 



Nature's Plan. 103 

Through thy mighty solitudes 

Cool and so quiet 
The delicate flight of electric fire 

Through cavern and cave 

Has fled like a slave, 
And whispered to friends our least desire. 

The fields you have watered, 

The air you have washed, 
You 've grown the coral and made the rare pearl, 

We '11 forgive you your pranks 

And render you thanks, 
If you '11 only be good to that one sick girl. 



(3M3 



NATURE'S PLAN. 

The same food makes the eagle's crest, 
And feeds the ground bird in its nest, 
And forms and tints the robin's breast. 

Each working by its Maker's plan, 
Will take from nature what it can, 
And build an insect or a man. 

Will it be true in heaven's zone, 

That each must travel on alone, 

And take what he can make his own ? 



MY SOUL'S EVENING HYMN. 

My soul, indite an evening hymn 
With life's long day so nearly done, 
While waiting for the setting sun 
Let some memorial rise to Him. 

If age is not a wintry day, 
But warmed by true, celestial fire, 
Where hopes are born and griefs expire,- 
This debt to truth my soul shall pay. 

These peaceful hours before we go, 
When spirits stand at heaven's gate, 
And for their endless portion wait, — 
Is this your Winter, with its snow? 

Let all report just what they see. 
If wanderers in the world's deep shade, 
Meet ends that Nature never made 
I sing the one that comes to me. 

In youth I saw thy light afar, 
But time and trial brought it near 
To lend to age its radiant cheer 
My morning and my evening star. 

When friendly voices ceased to come, 
I listened more at Heaven's door, 
And heard more clearly than before, 
And had the news direct from Home. 
104 



My Soul's Evening Hymn. 105 

Long time I sailed a worldly barque. 
With lights of memory hung astern, 
Hopes' headlights at the prow would burn, — 
But in the midships ali was dark. 

My hands clutched backward and before. 
That borrowed future, borrowed past, 
And bankrupt present — changed at last, 
To current coin and present store ! 

This banknote world must now retreat. 
To Time's great Present here I bow, 
Confront in vast existence now 
Myself, and find a joy complete. 

To God's great Future too an heir, 
I reach toward being's wide intent, 
Assured that what His love has lent, 
An alien hand will never share. 

The human always seems so dear : 
And hoping that it may fulfill 
Our heart's desire, and clinging still 
We ask our blessings now and here. 

O, sad infinity of earth ! 
Where boundless being pleads in me, 
For sea-room and the open sea, 
That still must wait immortal birth ! 

That void inheritance of mine, 
Where mysteries would lie and sleep, 
While deep was calling unto deep, 
Was filled at last with the divine. 



io6 Evening Bells. 

Chastisement's smoking furrows made 
The bed where conscience sowed its seed, 
That nurtured by the deeper need 
Took firmer root in sorrow's shade 

While moral stars around me fell, 
The tried and true that still remained 
Have steadied hope, while faith was strained 
These anchors holding, all was well. 

Once heaven's reasons all were hid, 
And sorrow's riddle all unguessed, 
But now my spirit, long distressed, 
Sees God revealed in what He did. 

White robes will justify our pain; 
And when we stand redeemed at last, 
While griefs that purged them all are past, 
We '11 bless the sunshine and the rain. 

Pathetic day of life's farewell, 
When I must leave those hearts so dear, 
To wander on in trial here, 
Still hides a tale I need not tell. 

From earth no more sad voices come ; 
Those lips I kissed and gave to dust, 
With fainting hope and faltering trust, 
Are chanting welcomes now from Home. 

The sowing and the reaping past, 
While all there was or is of me 
Seems gathered for eternity, 
I lav the sickle down at last. 



My Soul's Evening Hymn. 107 

There 's much more work I 'd like to do, 

And after rest perchance I may, 

But I can do no more to-day, 

And now must leave the rest with you. 

Life's golden bowl has broke at last, 
And spoiled the bread and spilled the wine 
That made that life so near divine, 
By hope's sweet plans, that seemed so vast. 

The silver cord has loosened too : 
Some hand from out the great Unknown 
Has turned the loving tension down, 
So failing strength could part with you. 

We feel the ocean in its breeze. 
And in this palpitating peace, 
The pledge of heaven's long life-lease, 
I feel the pulse of distant seas. 

The dawn eternal soon will come, 
I 'm dreaming out my morning dream, 
The barque lies waiting in the stream, 
And wind and tide unite for Home ! 



WHEN. 

When you can locate dimples, 

And make blushes hear to reason, 

Run human hearts on schedule time, 
And keep them all in season ; 

And map the world of fancy, 
Bound its continents and seas, 

Show all its modes of travel, 
Or where one rests with ease ; 

Describe each place of interest, 

And season of the year, 
So every future wanderer 

Have a trusted gazetteer ; 

When you can find the spirit 

That first forms and paints a flower, 
Tell how a woman's heart is held 

By a lover's manly power ; 

Then I '11 explain the mystery 

To you, my gentle mother, 
Why with all your tender pleadings 

I could never love another. 
108 



THE GRAVE OF SELF. 

When self surrenders the right to choose, 

And love can aim alone to bless, 

To serve is greater than possess, 

We 're holding naught we dread to lose. 

Self dead — declares soul-titles sure. 
In hopelessness there is a joy, 
That hope would lessen or destroy. 
Where self has vanished, all is pure. 



©RS> 



A WOMAN IS A WORLD UNKNOWN. 

A woman is a world unknown : 
And though man settle in the land 
And swear allegiance to its laws, 
Defend it with his own right hand, 
In hours of danger plead its cause; 
Its mystery he can not command 
Or ever- fully understand 
A life not fashioned like his own. 
And this distinct variety 
. May bless our long eternity. 
What made our earthly life so dear 
May lend to Heaven its radiant cheer, 
And keep its secrets there as here. 
in 




ACKNOWLEDGING A GIFT. 



Let those outside soul fellowships 

Pay friendship's debts in what they do ; 

But those within, by what they are — 
For this there 's quite enough of you. 

The hours we spend with kindred souls — 
I deem all others poor beside them, 

And when they meet on common plains, 

Who cares for years that may divide them ? 

Your friendly gifts of flowers and fruit 

Touch memory's bells and often ring them, 

But should such promptings beat again, 

I pray do n't send, but come and bring them ! 

If in these lines you fail to feel 
The warm Godspeed they do n't reveal, 
And second sight do n't chance to read 
A wish far better that the deed ; 
I would not make such poor returns 
For warm carnations cooled by ferns. 
112 



LOSS. 

That bosom on which 

My head was first pillowed, 

Unwarmed by God's love 

Till my manhood's estate, 
And then the cold currents 
Of time swept between us, 
And childhood's best gift 

Had been given too late. 

Although it be penned 
With affectionate sadness, 
Whose memory is only 

Preserved as in frost, 
There are moans like the winter winds, 
Pensive and lonely, 
Reminding me still 

How life's summer was lost. 

No moral sun shone 

For so many long seasons, 

The plants that grow best 

In the garden of youth, 
Unset in their season, 
Growing wild on the moorland, 
Were hard to transplant 

To the vineyard of truth. 

113 



ii4 Evening Bells. 

Those long, chastened years 
Of a loving maternity 
Cast their cool shade 

O'er each battling son. 
Yet how blest is that boy 
Whose mother's devotion 
Has hallowed his life 

When that life first begun! 

TEARS. 

The slightest form of trial grieves, 
While tears run off the eyelid eaves ; 
Those tears we shed are true heart's-ease, 
While others at their fountains freeze. 

Those clouds that flood the inner sky, 
And fail to give the reason why, 
A menace that we can't explain, 
That darkens life and deepens pain ; 

Yet if the generous rain descends, 
The poisoned atmosphere is cleansed ; 
The sky rained blue, the sun appears, 
We 're grateful for the help of tears. 

There are some woes that strike so deep, 
That souls are stunned but never weep, 
And tokens the most sad of all, 
Are tears that burn but never fall. 

A universal language known 
And read by tribes of every zone, 
The flag of inward life appears, 
Translated by our smiles or tears. 



ROSES IN A SICK ROOM. 

FOR MISS FLOSSYE HALE. 

Tossed on a restless sea of pain 

For many a sleepless day and night, 

Till time grew weary in its flight, 

And agony still held its reign; 

Each prayer I breathed, O Lord, to Thee, 

Seemed answered by the sullen sea. 

Shore-lights were out on every coast, 
The needle trembled in the box, 
The billows dashed upon the rocks, 
Life's bearings all seemed well-nigh lost: 
While patience, put to such a test, 
Was pleading for one hour of rest. 

There came a sweet child to my bed, 
With pity in her tender face, 
And roses in her little hands — 
They were for me — she kindly said. 
She scarce looked" up, she did n't remain, 
But laid them on my bed of pain. 

That night came long, refreshing sleep, 
The crisis passed, my pain was gone. 
W nen I awoke to greet the morn — 
In gratitude I could but weep: 
And those sweet roses seemed to say, 
"We came to herald this bright day." 
115 




BURNING LOVE LETTERS. 

When we were sadly parted, 

To never meet again, 
I had those old love letters, 

Heart echoes of her pen. 

When a message draped in mourning, 
Contained this last request, 

"Please burn them or return them, 
As seems to suit you best." 

I could not send them back to her, 

Her soul in every line ; 
So I laid them, a burnt offering, 

On love's most holy shrine. 

And on those sweet heart-scriptures, 
Subscribed with her dear name, 

I rained my soul in burning tears 

That well-nigh quenched the flame. 
116 



Burning Love Letters. 

The crucible that held them, 
How precious still it seems ! 

For it contains the ashes 
Of all my early dreams. 

The fire must pass upon them, 
Lest alien eyes should see; 
But that residuum of dust 
Is legible to me. 

If Time's swift, criss-cross currents 
Drift loving souls apart, 

Why burn our sweet memorials, 
Those records of the heart ? 

Perchance when far in Heaven 
We wish to claim our own, 

We '11 need these old love letters 
To present before the throne. 



117 




TO MY SON, WENDELL, ON HIS TWENTY- 
FIRST BIRTHDAY. 

The door swings outward from the home, 
And leaves my precious boy to roam 
Where dangers lurk and passions foam — 
O, what will be in years to come ! 

Such fires along his nerves now creep, 
Such winds of passion o'er him sweep, 
Like lightning loose he makes a leap, 
For good or toward a vortex deep. 

He 's bound to go at any rate, 
And just as sure to start at date; 
He '11 strike and hold a rapid gait, 
Or balk ; and that might prove his fate. 

In play he drops upon my knee, 
How soon his weight now wearies me ! 
And he is anxious to be free. 
How changed from what it used to be ! 

Two anxious hearts that sorely bled, 
Had packed his trunk, with little said, 
But through the silence each had read 
The imprint of a mutual dread. 
118 



To My Son Wendell. 119 

The hours were fleeting, youth was gay, 
He 'd sure be back another day. 
Ah ! yes, my boy, you '11 pass this way, 
And stop ; but never come to stay. 

If fibered for a leader's throne, 

He misses in the upper zone, 

He '11 try it in a lower one ; 

Where hearts of flesh soon turn to stone. 

Will home remembered still be dear 
When we may all be sleeping here, 
And backward glances lend a cheer 
To anxious hours when fraught with fear ? 

He yet may long to lay that head 
On mother's bosom, once its bed ; 
But only when his youth has fled, 
And life's ambitions all are dead. 

Time is inexorable ; tears are vain ; 
Manhood has come, he can't remain, 
His own free course then do n't restrain ; 
Or fetter what you can't retain. 

We all know when this time arrives 
The lust of locomotion strives 
To fix the heaven of youthful lives 
In other lands, and on it drives. 

It soon will be that all alone 
W T e sit around the old hearthstone, 
And listen to the wind's sad moan, 
While love recalls the missing one. 



120 Evening Bells. 

Our hearts will still record your birth, 
And Christmas joys recall your mirth, 
If noble men declare your worth — 
Old age will bloom amid its dearth. 

If lying solace chant her lays, 
And true lights give but scattered rays, 
Then try to catch those little strays, 
Light islets in a world of haze. 

If loving hands have kindly lain 
A rush light in the window pane, 
Though every fiber feel the strain, 
Press on ; for Home is endless gain. 

Our lights are out ; our race is run, 
While yours has only just begun ; 
If He shall say to all : "Well done," 
Our scattered lives will there be one. 



FRIENDSHIP. 

The friendship heaven most approves 
And death itself will fail to sever, 

First helps you over life's rough way, 
Then dotes on you forever. 

From such a life's impression plate 
How many copies will be taken, 

As love reviews the cherished good 
That tender memories waken. 



TO JENNY LIND. 

She came with the strength of her native hills, 
A child of the north land's rugged zone, 

With plaintive smile and a forest voice, 
And a soul accompaniment all her own. 

From seas and mountains and vales she saw 
Wild currents through all of her being ran ; 

And heart and brain and wonderful voice 
Were all on the same majestic plan. 

Those frugal Summers near Arctic snows, 
Those frosted minsters in Winter's cold, 

The frozen prayers of her nation's heart 
Had cast her mind in a thoughtful mold. 

A true soul-fellow of winds and waves, 

Of the solemn night and its tender mood, 

A wealth in sweet duress of pain, 

Till lavished on evil and the good. 

A vocal lyre with her heart's own strings 
Attuned to passion as it had been, 

Could never be touched in the slightest way, 
But to utter the sensitive soul within. 

On the hazardous peak of that lone high C 
She rests like a bird on a topmost bough, 

With forces reserved for a future flight, 
Triumphant calm on her queenly brow. 



121 



122 Evening Bells. 

Through the heart's choked channels the sweet song 
came, 

How strange — yet all had forgotten the cheers, 
As it died away on a troubled past, 

The greetings were muffled by sobs and tears. 

The inadequate ceased when she appeared ; 

She had felt the need of the largest soul, 
And the fountains hidden beneath those lips 

Were deep and could satisfy the whole. 

She seemed to have challenged the blue night-sky, 
That lay between her and the upper home, 

And she bantered the Angels to try their hand ; 
Then paused, as if waiting to see them come. 

In rhythm of form, and of soul, and sound, 
Beautiful truth had been tenderly set ; 

The sweet undulations of that distant hour 
Are singing away in my memory yet. 



LESSONS OF THE FLOWERS. 

When we would bring a flower 
To a deeper, richer shade, 

We put it into darkness, 

And leave it there to fade. 

When all its leaves are fallen. 
And in grief it seems to die, 

It is gathering wealth of color 
For the roses by and by. 

The florist ties a ribbon 
Around some little bud, 

And then it never blossoms, 
But is given back to God, 

The same sweet thing he made it, 
With its petals folded up, 

That ne'er drank dew of Heaven 
In its fragrant little cup. 

The rose buds put in water 

Hasten flowers for present need, 

And will give you early beauty, 
But will never give you seed. 



12' 



LONESOME. 

While I kneel at evening praying, 
One new burden on me weighing, 
One sad voice is ever saying : 
"My dear child has gone from me." 

Days seem long since she departed, 
Car bells ring the hour she started, 
And I grow more heavy hearted, 
Every passing train I see. 

While I would be self-denying, 
Reason rules and I keep trying — 
Still my heart is ever crying: 
"O ! my child, come back to me." 



124 



SILENT. 

Under Irving's dying pillow, 

Where men put sacred things, 
Amid the deep sincerities 

The last hour always brings, 
Was a sweet face bound in velvet 

And clasped with golden ore, 
That o'er his heart he 'd carried 

For fifty years or more. 

The theme his life was crowning 

Had never reached his pen, 
Till his constant life concluded 

In death's profound Amen. 
While the hush of silence rested 

'Twixt night and endless noon, 
Across this lonely boundary 

They kept their honeymoon. 



125 



THE STORM KING. 

On an afternoon of a summer day, 
As the drowsy air in contentment lay, 
The majestic heavens looked mildly down, 
From a face unmarred by tear or frown. 

The fields were panting, the roads were cracked, 
All nature mourned for the dews it lacked ; 
For weary weeks not the slightest shower 
Had moistened the lips of a dying flower. 

The world was preparing for night and rest 
As the King of Day moved On to the West, 
The flowers had folded their withered bloom, 
And the shuttles had ceased in nature's loom. 

On the distant edge of the boundary line, 
Where the sun surrenders 'his right to shine, 
He was trying to force his departing rays 
Through the threatening belt of a purple haze. 

On its bosom shimmered a harmless light, — 
Then javelins flew as if aimed with spite; 
These signals of storm we carefully read, 
And their message came with a sense of dread. 



u &>' 



The Storm King suddenly claimed the right 
Of entire control of the coming night, 
The wings of the tempest were brooding the stars 
From the shafts that flew and their thunder jars. 

126 



The Storm King. 129 

He hung his banners of flame in the sky, 

On a background of jet, and the wind's battle-cry 

Hurried black warriors across the blue plains, 

And hoarse thunders rumbled their long baggage trains. 

He called to the winds for their wildest gale, 
And covered his plans with the darkest veil ; 
And forests trembled and houses shook 
At the Storm King's strength and his angry look. 

Ironical questions the thunders asked 

Of a conscience now that was overtasked ; 

And the silent pauses awaited reply 

To wrongs we had done and the reason why. 

There was but one cloud— but it compassed all, 
And curtained the night with its dreadful pall, 
Horizontal thunders would roar and boom 
Through openings made in the rifted gloom, 

Then away in indefinite distance die, 
While pitying clemency breathed a sigh. 
Wild agents of attributes thought so kind, 
In confusion flew on the troubled wind. 

And that rayless majesty, dark with doom, 
Held weapons of death in its folds of gloom ; 
And trembling helplessness waited the blow, 
For where it would fall no one could know. 

When the windy prelude had ceased its play, 
And the sense of danger had passed away, 
Then the wealth of heaven came down in rain 
Till the souls of the flowers were born again, 

9 



130 Evening Bells. 

Then the wind-harp changed to a softer tone, 
For the moistened strings had wet the moan ; 
And that shrieking messenger, fraught with fears, 
Was sobbing now, like a child in tears. 

Then the still small voice of gratitude spoke 
To the heart when it knew that the worst was past, 
And with sheltering roof and a drinking earth 
And the songs of rain we slept at last. 

But the nerves were tense and the blood was warm, 
And memory charged with a sense of good, 
Invited us oft through the livelong night 
To awake and enjoy the descending flood. 

The exhausted remnants of that solid storm, 
By the dying breath of the tempest tossed, 
Were aimlessly wandering over the sky, 
Now pale and wan from their life-blood lost. 

The skies rained out their faintest stain, 
And the lone effect of their saddening shade ; 
And the light and laughter of nature seemed 
As new as it did when the world was made. 

On silent simplicity's restful blue 
The conqueror came to proclaim the day ; 
And his flags of light were hung anew 
O'er all the earth to proclaim his sway. 

On the lurid rage of the night before 

Lay a glassy sea with its shoreless deep ; 

All bathed in a silent excess of light 

As serene as the hours when the angels sleep. 



The Storm King. 131 

In the apple blossoms tlie raindrops lay, 

The violets took heaven's authentic blue, 

The air had been washed of its poison mists, 

And cleansed by the thunders through and through. 

I breathed the sweet air of that model morn 

As if it had been my Maker's own breath, 

And said to my soul, "Such beauty as this 

Would cheer my lone hours in the presence of death." 

When the Solar Empire's central star 
Moved on toward the West through Cerulean seas, 
'T was a pleasure to see how a world on fire 
Could challenge its foes with such sense of ease. 

Through a cloudless sky he sank serene 
O'er beds of vermilion skirting the West, 
To the chambers where we say, "Good Night," 
And the purple curtains hung round his rest. 



TO AN ABSENT DAUGHTER. 

I hear a calling from the sea 
As musing long I sit alone, 
A voice familiar oft will come 
In holy hours and speak to me. 

A voice so often heard in song, 
A voice so sweet at evening prayer, 
A voice I miss so everywhere, 
A voice now silent all too long. 

I wait so long the one I miss, 
I start at every stranger's call, 
I hear her footsteps in the hall, 
I wait the greeting and the kiss. 

Want calls for generous hands to do : 
I start in hope, I look about, 
But there 's no place for things worn out, 
And so I think of God and you. 

I 've wondered how the little bee 
Lays up a store in waxen sheen, 
For Winter he has never seen — 
A Winter he may never see; 

How girlhood in its sweet June youth, 
A-singing like some happy bird 
The songs that neither ever heard, 
Strikes Autumn minors with such truth. 
132 



To an Absent Daughter. 133 

But always now when you are nigh 
I feel a kindred spirit made 
To comprehend each light and shade 
That rests upon life's inner sky. 

Fair child of sunny, tropic lands 

Of thought and feeling warmly blent, 

It was thy Maker's kind intent 

That thou shouldst go with empty hands ; 

So he has left thee without wealth, 
That thou mightest sing from door to door, 
Tone-minstrel of the sorrowing poor : 
That giving, thou shouldst give thyself. 

To you I give a father's seal : 
And while I sit with empty hands 
To watch the running of the sands, 
Through you I make my last appeal 

To needy man in all his need, 
That he accept the gentler grace 
Of her who comes to take my place 
When I shall sleep too sound to heed. 



HER REASONS. 

I know I never see in self 

Those wonders with which he invests me; 
But seeing they are true to him, 

I take his verdict, and it rests me. 

What love creates it may sustain, 
And so, when I am old and gray 

And faded as an Autumn leaf, 
He '11 see me as I seem to-day. 

So — as I see it here alone — 

It does seem best that we be mated, 

Why should he be robbed of charms 
I know his generous love created ? 



i34 



MOTHERED. 

DEDICATED TO MRS. ISABELLA SPURLOCK OF THE MOTHERS' 
JEWELS HOME, YORK, NEBRASKA. 

Like; some poor, bleating lamb 
Running o'er a cold moor, 
When shut from the fold, 

With a storm driving by ; 
We could wander at large 
With no hand to restrain, 
But our freedom seemed only 

A freedom to die. 

We had envied the spaniel 
That some one would own, 
Though beaten at times 

With unmerciful blows, 
For there 's nothing so lone 
As a child in the street, 
That nobody cares for 

And nobody knows ! 

O! the deep mother- want 
We had felt in the world, 
With a child's needy heart 

Aching out in the night ! 
How we missed tender words 
And a mother's warm smile, 
While the tears of remembrance 

Were blinding our sight. 

i37 



138 Evening Bells. 



Though the birthdays and Christmas 

Still came as of yore, 

They were now but the dreams 

Of a beautiful past. 
There were none to buy presents 
And dote as we smiled, 
So our full cup of wonders 

Seemed empty at last. 

Then our unconscious want 

Pure maternity saw, 

Ere a starved dimple waned 

In one sorrowful face, 
And divining our destinies 
Made them her own, 
And we shared in love's foresight 

So hallowed by grace. 

When the searchlights of love 
Had once clearly revealed 
Misfortune's chance guests, 

Without shelter or home, 
With a mother's deep instincts 
To care for her own, 
She took out a license 

To love all that come ! 

We thought that caresses 

Could only be few, 

One mother-love lavished 

On such open mart; 
But it grew by extending 
Its sheltering wings, 
Till it mothered us all 

In one warm brooding heart ! 



MONUMENT MOUNTAIN. 

O, dear early home in that calm Eastern vale, 

Where the Red Man's forgotten tribes now lie asleep, 

And Monument Mountain — his beacon and mine, 

Rests calm in the clouds that around him still weep. 

Invisible arms brought a gossamer veil, 

Woven up from the spray of the warm gray seas ; 
Lightly poised as the spirit of childhood's first dream, 

It vanished when touched by the passing breeze. 

Clouds caught and impaled on this great granite shaft 

As they dashed through the heavens like spirits in pain, 

Fierce rent by the lightning and pierced to the heart, 
Shook out their black folds in the thunder and rain. 

Night's orchestra played us her wild, haunting themes, 
The floods clapped their hands in the shingles o'er head, 

The thunders were tolling their funeral bells- 
Was I meant for the living, or marked for the dead ? 

In darkness the lightning was cutting red rifts, 

The night winds were making sad dirge in the pines, 

And on that black bosom of gloom that oppressed, 

The dread day of judgment seemed writing its signs. 

i39 



140 Evening Bells. 

In gorgeous October I 've oft seen it dressed, 
The poplars in silver, frost maples in gold, 

In Indian Summer-times soft, purple haze, 

When sunbeams seemed sleeping like flocks in a fold. 

In Winter its white silence filled me with awe, 
Its sentinel pines seemed to watch o'er the dead 

That were sleeping beneath their cold mantle of snow, 
And the winds were the one lonely ritual read. 



(52Z9 



SMILES. 

Those smiles that play o'er sunburnt scars 
Our deepest sympathies invoke. 

Tears plead the most that never fall, 

And best fires burn from hearts of oak. 

The gratitude of some worn slave 
For briefest rest in troubled sleep, 

Who smiled for brine to bathe his wounds, 
Has moistened eyes that seldom weep. 



THE OLD MAN. 

We saw him on the whitened peaks 
Of fourscore years or more ; 

Looking toward the home of kindred 
That had passed that way before. 

All the woof of time was woven, 
And the shuttles ceased to go ; 

But the webb of life grew whiter 
As it bleached upon the snow. 

Hand of Time had used its knuckles 
So much oftener than its palm : 

Yet through all the battered features 
One could read eternal calm. 

Soul was now so near the surface 

Of a body worn so thin ; 
Bony breastworks, slightly veiling, 

Scarcely tried to keep it in. 

Such excuse seemed offered poorly 
For detaining him so long ; 

Yet a strong soul running smoothly 
Often keeps a body strong. 

H3 



144 Evening Bells. 

Haste in little startled gushes 

Flushed his face with youthful wine ; 

But the bells of memory ringing, 
Brought their sense of his decline. 

Green felicities that ripened 

In the Summers that were past, 

Had been tasted and rejected, 

For they were not made to last. 

Tears had salted youthful freshness, 
Time had seasoned what was green : 

And life's harvests had been winnowed 
By the years that lay between. 

There were many earthly maxims 
That his soul had now outgrown, 

With the times he 's out of fashion 
As he nears the great unknown. 

In the shed plumes of an eagle 
That is soaring toward the sun, 

He will send us his gray tidings 
Of a Summer just begun. 

The rejected earthly precepts 

Of a soul that 's mounting higher, 

Tell of God's ideals sighted 
On its restless wings of fire. 

And great souls have polished engines 
With a stroke both strong and free ; 

But the poor old hulks that bear them 
Grow unworthy of the sea. 



The Old Man. 145 

In a fair, dim twilight city 

Do these snow-crowned heroes dwell ; 

As the prisoners wait the morning 
That shall free them from their cell. 

On the land owned by another — 

Makes him tenant here below ; 
And if age can't pay the rental, 

Time is up and he must go. 

Funeral interviewers calling 

Nearly every night for months, 

Their rehearsals all declining, 
He refused to die but once. 

Death need bring no flags of battle 

To parade with victor's cry ; 
He would so exhaust old Nature 

There 'd be little left to die. 

Once he warmed his freezing fingers 

On the furnace of his breast ; 
Now the slightest touch of coldness 

Sends a chill through all the rest. 

Indian Summer days are dearer 

Since we know they can't abide 
Near the borders of the Winter, 

With its chills on either side. 

Gorgeous days of late October, 

With their bright frost-bitten bloom, 
Have their touches truly tender, 
Pointing toward an early tomb. 
10 



146 Evening Bells. 

Flesh declining! Soul advancing! 

Life sustained at heavy cost, 
'Twixt these constant countermarches 

Spirit fires yet fighting frost. 

All the outworks now are captured, 
There is failing sound and sight ; 

So with blinders on he 's standing, 
Waiting orders and the light. 

Close beside life's failing embers 
There 's a tender longing found, 

For the old appreciation 

That his younger years had crowned. 

To the frail forgotten tenant 
Of this old decaying house 

Voices whisper through the openings, 
"God will soon redeem his vow T s." 

Memory thrills at many conquests 
Of his manhood's glorious prime ; 

But it rests where childhood slumbers, 
In the deep blue haze of time. 

Hammer strokes in faint conclusion 
Now complete the work life gave ; 

Then the blows of reconstruction 
Will resound above his grave. 

Death will send his Will to probate, 
Then we '11 know how much we share 

From his burning disinfectants 
That have purified the air. 



Love Asleep. 147 

When the snow-bloom told of Winter 

It was met with Christian cheer ; 
Paid the debt in small installments, 

Died a little every year. 

Face so worn in life's endeavor, 

And so seamed by trials past, 
Angel hands smooth out forever, 

For the long, sweet sleep at last. 



©R9 

LOVE ASLEEP. 

Like mossbuds, folded up till morn, 
By some strange power, in meeting you, 
Love woke ; and opening to the dew, 
I felt its latent life reborn. 

Asleep for years, it woke once more, 
The eyelids raise, but quickly close, 
To seek again the long repose, 
As ripples die along a shore. 

Then there arose intense desire 
To warm by inspiration's flame, 
And on the future write a name, 
And take ambition's flight of fire ; 

But life was in another Key. 
With windows open toward the light, 
How beautiful the earthly sight ! — 
But I salute Eternity. 



BRIDE ROSES. 



3. E. M. 



While the wedding guests assemble, 
There 's a presence still I crave, 

But 't is resting at a distance 

In my own dear mother's grave. 

And my heart is with that sleeper, 
Where the weeping willows wave, 

And I '11 send my wedding roses, 
They shall lie on mother's grave. 

Let a kind friend catch their emblem 

In a picture I may save, 
But please take my living roses 

Out to fade on mother's grave. 

I was touched by loving greetings, 
And the tokens friendship gave, 

But I want my bridal roses 

Sent to die on mother's grave. 



148 



LIES SUBJUNCTIVE. 

If lies be falsehood by intent, 

And theft be lying backed by action ; 

And bribes be falsehood backed by cash, — 
This family has wide connection. 

If meaning what we do not say 

Be falsehood by insinuation ; 
And saying what we do not mean 

Be lying in the same relation : 

If insincerity of heart 

But merely 'bides a time for action, 
And lies are lying latent force, — - 

This family has wide connection. 

If fearing the results of truth, 

We dodge its questions by evasion, 

To get a lien on present good, — 

Then crowds belong to this persuasion. 

If selling goods at less than cost 

Makes money by a new invention, 

And snubs the ancient laws of trade, 
We call this good to your attention. 



149 



LIES INDICATIVE. 

Deception takes the cousin's place, 

And insincerity the twin, 
And these relations are so close, 

Partition walls are very thin. 

All lies are outlaws at their birth ; 

Keen-scented truth, like blooded hound, 
Commissioned at the upper court 

Will take their track and hunt them down. 

Let public organs saw their tunes, 

Each strike the same delusive notes. 

Raise falsehood to the hundredth power 
By multiplying shouts and votes. 

Diseases that were cured by shams, 
We find the patients soon relapse ; 

Aerial travelers must return, 

For gas-balloons will soon collapse. 

The leader on delusion bent, 

Who pilots into pathless maze, 
As he was farthest in the van, 

He 's now the deepest in the haze. 

Eternal intimations point 

To settled landmarks in the skies ; 
Delusive lights and shooting stars, 

The only guide to branded lies. 
150 



Lies Indicative. IJI 

Born of the whirlwind's blackest night, 
Self-centered as a cyclone's breath, 

They hurl sand-columns high in air — 
But in a moment meet their death. 

These ghosts from night-land's deepest shade, 
These waving phantoms, lank and tall, 

One moment's impulse holds erect, 

Like cyclists, when they stop, they fall. 

Lies always burrow or balloon. 

They never cross your path at grade ; 
They dread the light and open plain, 

So seek the jungle and the shade. 

Or falsehood sometimes seeks the crowd, 
The blaring trumpets makes its choice. 

Because it wants the roar that drowns, 

Lest it should hear "the still small voice." 

It 's shy and timid when alone, 

And likes to join the largest class ; 

As self-inspection always frowns, 
It never keeps a looking-glass. 

On conscience's pure, white fields of light 
The traitor's tracks are always seen, 

Wrong-doing heaven's scribe records 
In black on this celestial sheen. 

If conscience takes vacation long, 
The wicked spirits always come, 

And hold their subtle interviews 

When Nature's critic 's gone from home. 



152 Evening Bells. 

The good oft share the liar's lot. 

A wife must bear a husband's shame; 
His piety and deeds for land 

Are registered in her fair name. 

A guilty secret now to guard 

Is dangerous as a hidden grave, 

That plow or spade may soon reveal : 
This fear will bind him as a slave. 

By searchlights truth will ever bear, 

That hidden falsehood may be found; 

So there it stands, in constant fear, 

A trembling thing on hollow ground. 

All things are changed, or changed to him, 
The truth on which he once had leaned, 

When uttered as in days of yore, 

Now turns and mocks him like a fiend. 

Truth's vale, with rainy seasons soft, 

Will nurture flowers of joy for bloom ; 

Lies, cast on Patagonian cliffs, 

Must perish in their frigid doom. 

While human hearts, with all their woes, 
May feel a union with the Lord, 

The universe holds not a note 

W r ith which a falsehood can accord. 



LIBERTY. 

"Sweet Liberty/' our bugle-call; 
In fear lest shadows' weights oppress, 
We ask a freedom in excess 
Of all our wants, if this be all. 

We struck the shackle from the hands ; 
To make that boon a real gain, 
We now must strike them from the brain 
Supporting weakness till it stands. 

What good to utter freedom's cry, 
If lambs shut out the nightly fold, 
Or slaves turned out in Winter's cold 
Are free — but only free to die ? 

That freedom that inspires the free 
To choose for mind its noblest ends, 
And sees on what success depends, 
Can only be a boon to me. 

For freedom, with ideals base, 
Like speed to prize fights, hastens wrong. 
If powers that thus transport the throng 
Did nothing else, they 'd curse the race. 

Majorities have, tyrants' powers ; 
And if they have the tyrant's heart 
Can play as well the tyrant's part, 
And be the poorer for their dower. 
i53 



MY FAITHFUL BRUNO. 

He will take my track where thousands more 

Have trampled on my steps before : 

My shoe-sole sweeter than a rose 

To my old watch-dog's faithful nose. 

If on the windward he wiil use 
The breezes to bring all the news, 
These airy telegrams disclose 
Their secrets to his sentient nose. 

If he must watch that I may sleep, 
And slumber o'er his senses creep, 
The air he breathes reveals my foes, 
And timely warns his constant nose. 



i54 



iiiiB 




STARS. 

I Ve summered and wintered the stars of night 
For seventy years in their hurried flight, 
And know no more of the jeweled skies 
Than childhood saw with its eager eyes. 

I 've traced effects quite back to cause, 
And learned a little of Nature's laws, 
From the awful depths of shoreless blue 
The years have brought me nothing new. 



5^3 



ANSWERED. 

Compassion moved the world above 
To answer mortals' deepest cry, 
And name the vast, veiled mystery ; 
So heaven made answer — "God is love." 

The brightest seraph from above 
Has never better light obtained ; 
Nor further yet has e'er explained, 
But answers — "Love is known to love." 



i57 



DORCAS. 

Fair Dorcas, that dear name will tell 
How friends in form and feature saw 
The creature likeness love may draw, 
And named thee for the wild Gazelle. 

T was pitiful when pure white hands 
Brought linen for her bed of death ; 
Suppressing sighs at every breath, 
Or hiding tears for love's demand. 

No more remedial helps to try, 
They smooth the last small wrinkle out, 
For loving hands then look about, 
And lay the dear one there to die. 

When loving helplessness is spent, 
And there 's no more that love can do, 
Dear Lord, we leave the rest to you, 
With hearts dissolved by love's intent. 

Poor needle woman, bent and worn : 
You never measured your full length, 
None ever knew your life's full strength 
Till they assembled there to mourn. 

To mercy's ministration drawn ; 

Sharp edges of an alien world, 

'Gainst which her generous life was hurled, 

Made death her consecration's crown. 

158 



Dorcas. 159 

When raised, she stands in life's last dress. 
Friends ask, "Must we all speech withhold ? 
Can lips now speak, so lately cold, 
And may we greet her and caress ?" 

"She lives — but dare we say, 'Amen !' 
Have we not wronged this friend of ours, 
In thus enlisting heavenly powers 
To call her back to earth again ?" 

"And have we done a noble part 
In robbing her of that blest crown, 
To offer burdens once laid down, 
And wear again a weary heart?" 

Her old familiar smile came first; 
The secret of some happy dream 
Sent through those eyes a cheerful gleam, 
And awe and silence were dispersed. 

"I cheerfully resign my heaven; 

I 'm truly blest again to see, 

And work for those that welcome me, 

And take the task my Lord has given." 

What pleading questions must arise, 
When one who left our low estate 
Returns with what they might relate 
Of worlds they saw in other skies ! 

Behind closed doors with bated breath 
Do those who have been raised anew 
Meet sometimes here for brief review, 
And talk of meeting after death? 



160 Evening Bells. 

Do souls that knew us here below 

By some mysterious spirit-light 

Catch inward thought from second sight, 

And read all hearts they wish to know ? 

Were all crowns ordered for the free ; 
Or some odd sizes unassigned 
For those whose work was much behind, 
So there may be some chance for me ? 

Were mislaid burdens borne at length? 
And had she satisfied her heart, 
When time came next that she depart, 
And she had given all her strength? 

When old and honored did she die, 
As in some happy Sabbath dream, 
That bore her on a peaceful stream 
When old friends said their last good-bye ? 

The Scriptures with their fine reserve, 
Unwilling human hearts should grieve, 
Speak not of pain they can't relieve, 
Unless some better end to serve. 

That shudder that comes o'er the heart 
When soul and body sever here 
Relations held so long and dear, 
Had had its day, and played its part. 

Death's message had no news to bring, 
For when it came to her at last, 
The present copied from the past, 
Had robbed the mystery of its sting. 



UNSAID. 

Abbreviations stand for God. 

L,ove is the shortest one we know ; 
The way to make its meaning full, 

It took a universe to show. 

Great souls are harps of diverse tones, 
Whose music never yet grew old, 

Love reaching toward a deeper deep, 
Has still a story never told. 

So when it 's late and all is said, 
It still has so much more to say, 

It 's missed so much it would have said, 
It 's just thought what it meant to say. 




ii 



I6l 




BABY DEAD. 

The little white coffin, with Arthur dead, 
Was covered over with dying flowers ; 

And borne away to its resting place, 

In the silent awe of the evening hours. 



Our tears had fallen for nights and days, 
And clouds still heavy with falling rain. 

We walked the house in an aimless way, 
And carried our burden of secret pain. 
162 



Poet of Childhood. 163 

A little chip hat with a whip and a whistle, 
Some dainty shoes with a silver tie, 

We put them away still bright and new, 

For the Christmas morn he was called to die. 

I go to see them whenever I dare, 

In a sacred drawer that holds them yet, 

But it grieves my heart to look at things 
That a mother's tears have so often wet. 



(3^3 



POET OF CHILDHOOD. 

O Poet of Childhood ! sincerity's seer, 

Who died young and left us the wide world in prose, 
The place of thy burial, date of thy death, 

I 've been trying to find — but nobody knows. 

Were you the good angel that heaven assigned us, 
But left at the end of our innocent years, 

And never came back, or failing to find us 

Art searching us still, though through falling tears ? 



UPON THE MARRIAGE OF A DAUGHTER. 

There are two tall shafts on our life's wide sea — 
God and that one of our opposite sex 

That for our devotion was kindly made, 

Yet on them we 've made nearly all our wrecks. 

We come with our heart-fires brightly aglow, 
And lay them down at the loved one's feet, 

But with this first offering never know 
How brittle the bond in so fierce a heat. 

Delicious witchery of love's first dream 
Now floats us out on its swelling tide, 

With every sail of emotion set, 

And reason asleep, we ask no guide. 

Borne on by an impulse so vast and sweet, 
We know we are living at great expense, 

But gifts from the heart's inherent wealth, 
Could surely require of us no defense. 

Perchance when our passion at first was crossed 
We tossed it about with an air as bold 

As one throws pence to a hungry crowd, 
After inheriting mines of gold. 

But the heart breathes love, as the lungs do air, 

On this alone for its life relies, 
If it ever be poisoned or even withheld, 

At first it stifles, and then it dies. 
164 



Upon the Marriage of a Daughter. 165 

By this sweet breath of our Paradise 
The soul's life-blood will be purified, 

Till childhood's likeness is stamped anew, 
And God wants its beauty glorified. 

And love that is lavished makes souls alike : 

When two lives are laid upon this dear shrine, 

Though thoughts may differ wide as the stars, 
Hearts reach a union that 's half divine. 

The thread that 's joined by the spinner's hand, 

The perfect weld on the heated steel, 
The moist clay united by hands of skill, 

Their places of union all conceal. 

So well has love's noble work been done, 
No slightest flaw or the faintest scar, 

In blending your two souls into one, 

Has ever been traced on the work thus far. 

Were you to invite all your bosom friends, 
Not one of them living could find the place 

Where the heart's smooth union was deftly made 
By the simplest flaw or the slightest trace. 

Cold death had broken our circle twice ; 

And then came love with its gentler hand, 
And though it has wooed and won its way, 

It took one more from our little band. 

These dirges and mirth in a union strange, 
Have each of them left us a vacant room ; 

They were emblemed by tears of grief and of joy, 
Tuberoses at first, then the orange-bloom. 



A CAUTION. 

A STEEL trap — though a wise invention, 
If set where you forget to mention, 
It springs — not asking your intention, 
Some friend of yours may need a pension. 

So now see to it 

That you do n't do it, 

Or else you '11 rue it 

Before you 're through it. 

An oil can left on stove that 's burning, 
While you step out to see the churning, 
With good intent of soon returning, 
Has taught some lessons worth the learning. 

So then see to it 

That you do n't do it, 

Or else you '11 rue it 

Before you 're through it. 



166 



TRUTH. 

I love: to look on thy calm brow, 
Majestic form of holy Truth; 

A traveler through the ages past, 

With all the freshness of thy youth. 

"I am the Truth," Jehovah said ; 

Thy years are numbered as his own, 
As equals when those years began, 

Entitled to the same white throne. 

Truth, clad in ermine pure as snow, 
Is armored for her own defense: 

Holds Nature's secrets as a trust, 
Distributes them without expense. 

Fair Truth will trample out the wrong 

In institutions or in men, 
And leave the wrecks of falsehood strewn 

Along all ways where she hath been. 

Stars in their courses fight for Truth, 
Unwearied still by night or day, 

She toils while men no longer shout. 
Drums cease to beat or bands to play. 

Though cleft from girdle to the crown, 
She goes right on, while shadows fall, 

While men still sow and reap and die, 
She worketh for the good of all. 
167 



i68 Evening Bells. 

When listening to thy voice, O Truth ! 

Whatever news the message brings 
We see when rightly understood, 

Thought always corresponds with things. 

When truth is uttered man may rest, 
A voice beyond the silence heard 

Speaks its approval to the soul, 
With mellow joy in every word. 

The good feel Truth, as nerves do air ; 

She makes her home among the meek, 
While reason only half reveals, 

And half conceals the truth we seek. 

He knows the truth who follows it, 
And soon becomes the real seer ; 

What conscience shoots its arrow through 
Is dead to him, however dear. 

No panic overtakes that man 

That 's always guided by the right ; 

Deposits in the bank of truth 

Help him to liquidate at sight. 

The world will never know that man 

Whose motives come from the Unseen ; 

But higher souls, with purer laws, 

Will join to keep his memory green. 




LITTLE PAUL. 

Thf, soft blue haze in those fair eyes 
Where childish innocence reposes, 

Refreshed you like a Southern breeze 
That had been trifling with the roses. 



The counterfeited sunbeams wreathed 
The brow in tasteful disarrangement, 

While every motion spoke to you 

Of mother's care and calm refinement. 
169 



170 Evening Bells. 

His kisses lingered on the lips, 
And purified the sweet relation. 

Their ruby touch could never soil 

The purest thought of inspiration. 

You ask about that smile of his — 

Ask God : — He knows it 's worth revealing. 

The thought of floating it on words 

Makes helplessness my deepest feeling. 

I catch these bundled beauties up 

And press them to my heart a moment — 

Alas ! the contrast seems so great 

I feel that I should make atonement. 



THE SILENT GUIDE. 

As soft as a love in our memory lies, 
As soft as the lids upon weary eyes, 

Afloat on a mist of tears — 
So gentle, the touch of an Unseen Hand, 
That was reached to me from the spirit land, 

To guide through the troubled years. 



SONS OF FREEMEN. 

O ! ye stalwart sons of freemen ! 

Still the heirs of noble sires, 
That on mountain peaks of promise 

Have rekindled Freedom's fires. 

Shall those beacons still allure us, 
Or are we so much enslaved 

That we '11 let the Nation perish 
If "Our Party" can be saved? 

Shall the lighted zones of progress 
Show the burdens we 've laid down, 

While the bearers now are wearing 
Destitution's thorny crown ? 

Shall the iron wheels unfeeling, 

While supplanting cunning hands, 

Leave the throbbing souls that made them 
Homeless wanderers in these lands? 



171 



TO MY WIFE ON HER FIFTY-SEVENTH 
BIRTHDAY. 

Though thy Springtime is past, 
And the Summer is gone, 
And the leaves of life's Autumn 

Are looking so sere, 
Thou 'st sighted a land 
Of our kindred departed — 
And it 's not far away, 

This fifty-eighth year. 

Good years of the past 

Stand around thee as guardians, 

Sponsors kind, bidding thee 

Never to fear ; 
She who has lived well 
The days now departed, 
Will not likely change 

In her fifty-eighth year ! 

With the strong arms of sons, 
The devotion of daughters, 
Thy bosom companion 

Still living to cheer; 
Assured they all love thee, 
And of Heaven above thee 
Take courage to enter 

Thy fifty-eighth year. 
172 



To My Wife. 173 

O ! thou was 't our conscript ! 
Life's burdens have bowed thee, 
That plants of God's planting 

You might wisely rear. 
You 've earned the sweet right — 
Proudly stand and proclaim it : 
"I am not ashamed 

Of this fifty-eighth year." 

How you raveled our problems 
When sleep was oft needed, 
And made their dark secrets 

So plainly appear, 
That we stood up in class, 
Boldly uttered our knowledge — 
But uttered no word 

Of those fifty-eight years. 

How your patience held out 
And your hope never faltered, 
Though others expressed oft 

The gravest of fear : 
You 'd hope against hope, 
For love would not be baffled — 
Pray now see it crowned 

In your fifty-eighth year. 

Thou hast housed in thy bosom 
All facts and all fancies 
That ever caused mortal 

To hope or to fear. 
Thou 'rt as great as thy past, 
Thou hast garnered its treasures 
And holdest their wealth 

For this fifty-eighth year. 



174 Evening Bells . 

The crisp in thy hands 
Is fairer than lilies, 
The lines in thy face 

Are surpassingly dear : 
Deep worn there for us 
They stand as love's monument, 
Crowning with glory — 

This fifty-eighth year. 

How you guarded each way 
With a mother's devotion, 
Lighting it oft 

With a smile or a tear ! 
We all want to make thee 
One long Indian Summer, 
And have it begun 

At this fifty-eighth year. 



(sKS> 



TWO. 

That God himself might ever be, 
Heaven's unfathomed mystery, 
He made a unity of three. 

To all his creatures less endowed, 

It now must plainly be allowed, 

That "Two is company, three 's a crowd." 



THE HIGH-BORN SOUL. 

Light beaconed in a high-born soul, 
Who makes a covenant with truth, 
Will satisfy the vows of youth, 
And meet him smiling at the goal. 

That light will show him what shall be 
When he arrives at manhood's prime, 
And makes a confidant of time, 
Or he reports at last to Thee. 

The cords our natures bind us by 
Are safer than the high resolve, 
For making future wheels revolve, 
That bear us on to destiny. 

We safely trust the tides to come, 
Though storms a moment check their force, 
Or rocks should turn them from their course, 
Yet Luna brings them safely home. 



175 



THE COLD MAN. 

There; are some natures made so cold 

They 're jealous if another loves them; 

As if their rights had been infringed, 
And it was duty to defend them. 

To others, who have gifts to give, 

So lonely is the lone estate, 
Unless they lavish what they have, 

They miss themselves, without a mate. 



6M3 



ANNA LEE. 

When lions live on grass and greens, 
And angels take to pork and beans, 
When Artists work alone for gold, 
And Poets dream with passions cold, 
When lightning listens to a song, 
Slows up awhile, then goes along, 
When thunders pause to breathe perfume, 
And sunbeams balk and won't illume, 
When deafened men can see a tone, 
And sightless ones can hear a stone, 
Then I '11 believe that Anna Lee 
Did better when she mittened me. 
176 



UNREST. 

What shall I say of this vanishing view, 

Forever afloat in the drowsy air, 
This Will-o'-the-Wisp that I ever pursue, 

And though ever fleeting, is still so fair? 

Shall Nature be treacherous only with man, 
And trifle alone with the being she crowned, 

And must I resent this so far as I can, 

By all those firm laws that my being has bound? 

Is it I 'm fallen, while Nature 's erect, 

And the loss of identity leaves us apart, 

That the good I pursue will continue to flee, 

Until we 're the same both in thought and in heart ? 

In my first throbbing impulse was Nature as good 
As when she pushed stars on their path in the sky? 

Am I just quarantined for diseases on board, 

To come to my good when I 'm healed by and by ? 

The flowers — the most constant and longest to woo — 
Will jilt us at forty and turn to the young; 

Though we prate of their beauty as other folks do, 
The dull commendations will die on our tongue. 

Those features, so sacred in years that are gone, 
By the growth of the soul are already outgrown, 

Whatever is fixed must perish as soon, 

And leave the great soul to go onward alone. 
12 177 



178 Evening Bells. 

If I must pursue what continues to flee, 

Why not be inspired by this comforting truth, 

That the unattained sends daily greeting to me, 
And with it a pledge of eternal youth? 



(3^3 



ALONE IN THE WORLD. 

On the white wings of a mother's passion, 

She rose from the grave of her buried mate, 

To study the ministering angel's fashion, 
And care for those who were left to fate. 

When the best good of our life is taken, 
We measure the future in this defeat, 

And in all that remains need never be shaken, 
For sorrow's equation is now complete. 

A pitying Eye is forever watching 

That one who is bearing the tasks of two ; 

And could He perfect your beautiful being, 
He 'd carry the burden He 's laid upon you. 



GOOD TIMES. 

"Good times"— our Nation's rallying cry ! 
Is this the best that we can find 
For Saxon blood and British mind ? 
Their dead would read it with a sigh. 

"Good times !" Belshazzar's banquet hall 
Has Hebrew gold, a royal band ; 
And while they feast, a warning hand 
Writes "Mene Tekel" on the wall. 

All times are hard that harden me, 
And all are good that make me good, 
However dear be fire or food, 
For noble souls are always free. 

We give to wealth our highest place, 
And we must take that falsehood down, 
And offer man a nobler crown, 
Or fail as leaders of the race. 

The needle points to yonder pole, 
And gravitation holds her sway, 
If man rebel or man obey, 
For Heaven's crown is on the Soul. 

Our love of gold, so feverish now, 
Will sure be cancerous by and by. 
With springs of inspiration dry, 
What can inspire a noble vow ? 
179 



80 Evening Bells. 

Our generation, torn in twain, 
A remnant left in freedom's strife ; — 
'T was sad from such a chastened life, 
To go and choose an end so vain. 

That this coarse undergrowth should find 
Such welcome in a virgin soil, 
And win such years of wasting toil, 
Discounts the glories of the mind. 

We 're disappointing heaven we feel, 
And glorying in material things 
Will not conceal the bitter springs 
Our conscience and our hearts reveal. 

Ungirded for the future race, 
Before our days are half complete, 
False cries becoming obsolete, 
Humanity must take their place. 

Since youth outgrows so many wounds 
We hush our doubts and chide our fears, 
In hopes that our maturer years 
Will build in honor what it crowns. 

ZEPHYRS. 

When the weary wind reposes, 
It wooes or trifles with the roses, 
Inhales their breath, and nods and dozes. 

Then flies away without assistance, 
Perfuming all the traveled distance, 
To cheer and sweeten man's existence. 



A SONG FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. 

DEDICATED TO THE NEBRASKA EPWORTH ASSEMBLY. 

Wis behold a Nation waiting 
, For a prophet's voice to-day, 
And the thoughtful now are silent, 

For they know not what to say. 
There 's a noble impulse throbbing 

In the bosoms of the true, 
But no trusted voice can tell us 

Just the thing we ought to do. 

Refrain: 

O ! I see that prophet coming 

In the shining ranks of youth, 
With the fiery pillar leading 

Toward the tablelands of truth. 

In the new-born strength that 's waiting 

Now for manhood's glorious prime, 
We are pledged a hallowed future, 

And it only bides its time. 
There 's a moral lunge behind it 

In those girded loins to-day, 
For a heavy tide of battle 

W nen that leader shows the way. 
181 



182 Evening Bells. 

When he breathes on lives now feeble 

His own spirit of the hills, 
And emotions cast their anchors 

In our consecrated wills, 
When we rise to love's high calling, 

Then its bloom will soon unfold, 
In a beauty born in heaven, 

And a story never told. 

Thoughts all white with virgin beauty 

Now are floating o'er the young, 
Soon to live in new ideals, 

And in songs we never sung. 
All its tones are yet in whispers 

Or in echoes faintly heard, 
While with heads yet bowed we 're waiting 

For that leader and his word. 



UTILITY. 

Spring was only for the plow, 
Autumn only for the sickle, 

Summer came for saving clothes, 
Winter for hot cakes and treacle. 

Sunset's gold for lengthening days, 
Clouds put on their fiery fringes 

Just to hush complaints of work, 

And oil the joints of labors hinges. 



(sSSS) 



YOUR GIFT. 

Your gift has warmed my blood like wine, 

For youth to age seems half divine, 

And more, when seen through souls like thine. 

I often dwell with pleasing awe 
On thy unaided power to draw 
All hearts to thine, by love's sweet law. 

Will seeds that took such earthly root, 
Whose fibrous years gained such repute, 
In heaven's warm air be flower and fruit ? 
183 



REFLECTION. 

God dwells in souls that love makes true, 
As stars lie mirrored in the dew ; 
Not one of them will He reject, 
That has this power to reflect. 

A drowning man may see the stars, 
That coming death so soon debars ; 
The doom of endless life in mine, 
Has time and room for the divine. 

Man tries by pictures to portray 
The Man Divine as best he may ; 
A fairer than Art ever paints, 
Is mirrored in the souls of saints. 

The light explains itself to eyes, 
And brings its message from the skies ; 
And God's own image found in thee, 
Is mirrored where all eyes can see. 

Its soul, the truth of heavenly birth, 
Its form, the beautiful of earth, 
The Unseen from this hiding place 
Speaks softly through each sainted face. 
184 



A MISCONCEPTION. 

The fop and dandy sorely feel 

It 's very hard to be a man ; 
And therefore to be ladylike, 

They try to do the best they can. 

Unless wide difference make the boon, 
What consecration could there be, 

To one whom Nature by mistake 
Had just made all in all like me ? 

And so wide margins wisely left 

Between all great and loving souls, 

Are quickly crossed when want is felt, 
As fire flies from opposing poles. 

One Man alone of all our race 

Sweet woman's nature ere became, 

And mingling such strange opposites, 
Took Godhead to maintain the claim. 

As sacred warnings still forbid 

All likeness to the Great Unseen, 

Though Christ has once accomplished this, 
It never should be tried again. 

Is there not prophecy in this, 
As in the squirrel or the bird 

Who lays up store or plans a voyage 

'Gainst Winter winds they never heard ? 
187 



1 88 Evening Bells. 

Wise Nature, constant we believe. 

With changeless need, amid all change, 

Will always seek its counterpart, 

However wide the soul may range. 

The sex we find in mind and heart 
Will have its mission there as here. 

And differences that made earth blest, 
Will make our Heaven doubly dear. 



6M3 



LIFE ITS OWN REPORTER. 

As he took dear grandmother's easy-chair 

The children bought for her Christmas-day, 

And saw her sit upon wood quite bare, 
While he read on in a careless way ; 

He knew not that habits which seldom die 

Were making reports of the days gone by. 

Y\ nile he took what he wished of all he saw, 
And never thought of another's need, 

And was slighting demands of life's best law 
While sowing the future with evil seed ; 

How little he dreamed that its growth at last 

Would make its report of his hidden past ! 



I WOULD COME NEARER THEE. 

Man ! thou pearl of greatest price : 
To know thy mind and share thy love, 

1 have the common wealth above, 
And taste the good of Paradise. 

brother, wheresoe'er thou be, 
Material holdings seem so small, 

1 could well-nigh resign them all, 
To come a little nearer thee ! 

In looking o'er the plan divine, 
The heart geographies I 've known 
All seem so very like my own, 
I feel their pulses beat in mine. 

I strain my longing eyes to see 
The beautiful and useful blend, 
Conspiring for a common end, 
To fashion earth and comfort thee. 

The grass will ever be as green, 
The sky's blue urn will hold the lights, 
That gladden now our days and nights, 
And Nature wear its present mien ; 

But whether it be bleak or blest, 
Will come from what thou art to me, 
And what I may become to thee, 
For thou art more than all the rest. 
189 



THE FLOWERS' QUEEN. 

God's smiles touched earth, and flowers grew 

Of every form and every hue. 

His generous love perfumed each leaf, 

A finished gift for joy or grief. 

The simplest flower upon the waste 
The humblest may present with taste. 
A child's sweet blush we can't refine, 
Or men look down on smiles divine. 

Love's flag now held as many hues 
As human taste would need to use, 
But one more fold at last unfurled, 
And there were roses in the world ! 



190 



OUR TWENTY-FIFTH WEDDING ANNIVER- 
SARY. 

'T was five and twenty years ago 

We started down the stream together, 

Heeding not how swift the flow, 

Or if 't were fair or cloudy weather. 

Not much was said of "Woman's Sphere" 

In days when our young faith was plighted : 

We thought of each as hemispheres, 
To make a world of bliss united. 

She 's never lectured, never preached, 
Has never written for the papers, 

But oft when we were all asleep 

She 's burned the patient midnight tapers. 

As I was in my study oft, 

And she as often in the kitchen, 

I feared that I might grow an oak, 
While she might only grow a lichen. 

And so I 'd bring her down some thoughts 
That often seemed to me fruition, 

To find that what I 'd gained by toil, 
She possessed by intuition. 

I 've pitied her in many ways 

Of heaven's providential teaching, 

In nothing half so much to-day 

As her forced listening to my preaching. 
13 193 



194 Evening Bells. 

Variety has blessed the rest 

And made our years fly by the faster, 

While she — meek dove — has done her best 
To still endure a settled pastor. 

And if I 've loved her fairly well, 

And for her happiness have striven, 

The cause will now be plain to you — 
That I have been so much forgiven. 

While sometimes we could pay our debts, 
At others have as oft postponed them, 

But when our ship came fairly in, 

I 'm bound to say — we squarely owned them. 

We have not felt, as some declare, 

That all the world 's an empty bauble. 

We 've had to borrow meat and bread, 
But thought not best to borrow trouble. 

"Sweet Home"— a name so dear to man, 
Describes a joy we never knew, 

Unless it be the Father's plan 
For us to find it here with you. 

These children that are with us yet 

Have had no common place of birth, 

And those whose death we still regret, 
No common resting-place in earth. 

Our lot has been a changeful one, 
And often caused us secret tears, 

We 've longed for those old friends that come 
Through patient love and faithful years. 



Twenty-fifth Wedding Anniversary. 195 

We never yet have judged a home 

From costly furnishings or fare, 
But through dear hearts that make it blest, 

And cherished friends that frequent there. 

And through those friends whose leisure hours 
Our home has gladly held in trust, 

A judgment passed upon our lives 
Will in the main be very just. 

So gladly bidding long adieus 

To all those low, fictitious tests, 
We feel a home is furnished well 

That 's furnished with such high-born guests. 

Before this day can come again 

Life's earthly limit will be past, 
So this is hallowed by the thought, 

Your present greeting is our last. 

One might outlive the years decreed, 

Still lingering round the earthly home, 

As some poor leaf clings to its tree 

After the Winter storms have come. 

That two should tarry hand in hand, 
When both their times were overdue, 

Has sometimes happened here below, 
But never likely to be true. 

That we have lived for others' good 
Has heightened every joy beneath, 

And now our day seems nearer done, 
Makes fiery chariots out of death. 



[96 Evening Bells. 

The motto of our lives has been, 

As o'er its varied ways we 've trod : 

"Man's highest bliss is found in this — 
Each for the other, both for God." 



(3^3 



OUR DESIRE TO SEE POWER EXERTED. 

We go in thought to Waterloo, 
To see those Celtic surges beat 
On English patience, sent to meet 
And change long victories to defeat, 
And chain their mighty captain too. 

A boy came on a beaten deck, 
To see his father once contend 
With all a maddened sea might send, 
Wnen air and ocean seem to blend 
In one wild rage without a check. 

Three Hebrews dared a furnace too, 
And prophets slept with hungry beasts, 
And told bad dreams in pagan feasts. 
The tortured would not be released, 
That they might see what God could do. 



THE NEW SONGS. 

I do not sing the new songs, 
They were not made for me. 

So many old familiar ones 
Still haunt my memory : 

But when I hear some well-worn strain, 

I always join in the refrain. 

I do not seek for new friends. 

The old are now more dear. 
We Ve kept the step on life's bleak way 

In sorrow and in cheer : 
And when I see some dear, old face, 
Each wrinkle wears a tender grace. 

I do not ask for new hopes. 

They can no more beguile. 
While those receding faces 

Look backward with a smile. 
With each dear heart that time sets free 
Another voice seems calling me. 

I hope to sing the New Song, 
Where all things else are new, 

And see my dear old comrades, 
And pass our last review ; 

Then join with heart and voice in thee, 

Old Hundred of Eternity ! 
197 



UNDERSTOOD. 

Th£ poet's deepest thoughts we read, 
We feel his mood, we laugh, we cry, 
Then grasp the ready pen to try — 
But find, alas ! 't is all unsaid. 

And so the poet in us dies — 
Because we can not give away 
That secret minstrel's happy lay, 
That in the hidden bosom lies. 

And thoughts we may not give away 
On self's poor altar slowly burn 
To ashes for a lonely urn 
To stand beside a lonelier way. 

Be this the pledge of heavenly birth, 
A sign that man was overmade 
For all that ever can be said, 
That he 's a stranger here on earth. 

That God has set on him this seal — 
Ne'er shall faltering lips of clay 
Be able in probation's day 
To utter all the soul may feel. 

Yet when two souls are keyed the same, 
Both answering to the gentlest stir — 
Each has its own interpreter, 
And finds the fact without the name. 
198 



Understood. 199 

In you I 've found such complement, 
That trembling in the gloom of night, 
Or shimmering in some lofty flight, 
I Ve had your blest accompaniment. 

To that still waiting-hall of rest, 
The skylight chamber in the dome 
That looks out on the Eternal Home, 
Where all who come are truly blest, 

Where all my victories are won, 

And where I sit and muse alone, 

On confines of the great Unknown, 

You 've come, with wedding garments on. . 

Joy of all joys to be thus known, 
If need be, but by one alone : 
But if the heart be read by none — 
This is the thorn in sorrow's crown. 

In Heaven we know as we are known, 
And its foundations bear this seal — 
Each may to each the best reveal, 
And love forever knows its own. 



TO ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Thou hallowed memory of the world I 
To him who sings let there be given 

Thy tender sympathies for men, 

And crystal insight, cleansed by heaven. 

Great Abstract of the Nation's past, 

And Index to its coming ages ; 
We catch from thy cold lips of stone 

A wisdom deeper than the sages. 

A sable cloud of pleading slaves, 

Had draped our moral sky in mourning ; 

But God had fixed their judgment-day, 
And named the hour for our atoning. 

Both Heaven and Hades rolled their tides, 
Soul-travel on rough roads grew weary, 

The chastened nights were steeped in threats, 
While days were growing dark and dreary. 

Light songs of slaves became to him 

A dirge ; since dumb despair inspired them. 

Unconscious woe bespeaks our tears, 

But mirthful grief, alas ! requires them. 

Tried man's transition time had come, 
His palsied hopes began to vibrate ; 

For one had grasped the working plans, 
God trusts to common sense incarnate. 
200 



To Abraham Lincoln. 201 

His pen-stroke cleft the bondman's chains, 
And freedom's campfires soon were blazing, 

And when the mists had cleared away, 

The slave and master both were praising. 

A Nation's pulse could beat in his ; 

Its tide was grasped by intuition, 
Diviner of those mighty days, 

When ripening plans should meet fruition. 

A Nation's tomb seemed near at hand, 
So many lives had been surrendered, 

Their graves implore us to be strong, 

That martyred love may be remembered. 

lie mirrored the gigantic shade 

The present casts upon the future, 
Exponent of a coining age, 

He stood the Nation's trusted teacher. 

And just as troubled seas grew calm, 
Peace beckoning to her quiet arbor, 

They shot him in the pilot-house 
As we were coming' into harbor. 



i & 



But when his sun went down at noon 
He held a lien upon the future ; 

Truth never stops because of death, 
Too much is vested in the venture. 

When malice struck the fatal blow, 

To every human heart it bound him, 

And ere it paid its dues to law, 

With immortality it crowned him. 



202 Evening Bells. 

The North was in his noble brain, 

The South in his warm heart was beating, 

The tides of grief that came from both, 
In this tried soul had found a meeting. 

Sometimes he showed alarming mirth, 
That jeopardized his serious standing, 

But wit would flash through prejudice, 
And give man's love a safer landing. 

A tender soul submerged by grief, 

By mirth's rebound is saved from drowning, 

And humor's light has brought relief, 

When fortune's clouds were darkly frowning. 

Now rest, cold brain ; we 're glad to leave 

This lonely zone of analyzing, 
To see love's tropic land of bloom, 

Where tears may fall without advising. 

We never cease to think of thee, 

Since thou hast thought so much of others, 

Thy patient love for human grief 

Has made all suffering men thy brothers. 

Thy place in human hearts is sure 

As those bright stars that rest above thee, 

And on the crumbling verge of time, 

A grateful world will greet and love thee. 

So long as suns shall rise and set, 

And Freedom shall rehearse her story, 

The one who gave the Nation's song, 
Shall share in all the Nation's glory. 



TO ALENE. 

The days creep slowly by, Alene, 

That I can hope to spend with thee. 
I hold it half a sin, Alene, 

To write the thoughts that live in me. 
I would not cause one minor strain 

To fall among thy merry lays, 
But failing life has lost the heat 

That grew the plants of other days. 

Some pensive thoughts will come, Alene, 

And linger round each dying day, 
And some with Autumn leaves, Alene, 

That tell of Summer passed away. 
And some when Winter's chill returns, 

And song birds leave the barren tree ; 
But closing life includes them all, 

And hallows earth by holding thee. 

Be near when tides go out, Alene, 

I then would feel your hand in mine, 
For in life's lonely hours, Alene, 

That hand has seemed so near divine. 
Press close, dear heart, and watch with me 

The setting of life's evening star : 
Perchance the final tide may make 

Strange moaning at the harbor bar. 
203 



AN ORDER FOR A PICTURE. 

Good painter, 1 come with a tiresome task 

That will tax your time and your utmost skill ; 

But if you can paint for me what I ask, 
Then make the price of it what you will. 

The one I want painted, dear sir, was drowned ; 

To the ocean depths by a tempest hurled, 
Her graces were hidden beneath the sea, 

And no copy left to a stricken world. 

Her loveliness won what it must refuse ; 

She knew this power was beyond control, 
To walk the earth and to breathe its air, 

Must plant a grief in a noble soul. 

With pity akin to an Angel mind, 

That seemed too pure for a world like this, 

Her face grew white and her pulses slow, 
Forlorn where others were tasting bliss. 

The love-log was cast on the ocean foam, 

With a prayer that the cord that falsely bound, 

Be tenderly taut as she fled away, 
And at last be safely all unwound. 
204 



An Order for a Picture. 205 

On this sad voyage, so nobly planned, 
While these are the very reasons why, 

She had gone for one she had left behind, 
And this was the way she came to die. 

You have painted Elijah, Paul, and John, 
With no trace left of them you could see, 

And gave them a form that uttered the soul, 
I want you to do just the same for me. 

There were none alive to describe their look, 

Dead ages lay on the earthly mold, 
Warm currents of life that preserve the form, 

Through time's long winter had all grown cold. 

Her picture now hangs in memory's hall ; 

While time has faded it, sad to tell, 
If it first be burnished with tender thoughts, 

I can get the outline fairly well. 

I will call up this face the best I can, 

You look into memory's mirror with me. 

With our soul's X-rays set eye to eye, 
Perhaps you can see the face I see. 

As a frame for setting a noble soul, 

Great, prodigal Nature could scarce do more, 

By inward relation to outward laws, 
The spirit spoke in the form it wore. 

One thing, dear painter, I hope you can get 

The very same as it used to be ; 
Those vocal eyes that would utter my name 

Before a word had yet welcomed me. 



206 Evening Bells. 

As thought passed over the soul's pure depths, 
Those registering eyes, by spirit gleams, 

Took note of the pleasure or pain they gave, 
As babes will smile or frown in dreams. 

The voice I am sure you can not restore; 

But that look ; 't will answer me just as well. 
If you get that back from the land of death, 

It will come with its old enchanting spell. 

I can not describe what I plainly see; 

'T is a very difficult task, you know ; 
Is it not then better to do this way, 

Paint Character, letting the features go? 

Will you tell me, sir, for I 'd like to know, 

Is there some weird power in a painter's art, 

To emblem a warmth that we sometimes feel 
From heart fires lavished in open mart ? 

Is there any way that your art can show 
A serious sweetness that puts at ease, 

By enlarging the sense of another's worth ; 

And will rest and refresh like a salt, sea breeze ? 

I want personality's subtle charm, 

Whatever course you need to pursue; 

That composite something containing the rest, 
If you blend all the colors you ever knew. 



SHADOWS. 

Memorial shadows of early dead, 
And herald shadows of last repose, 

And causeless shadows where nothing is said, 
That come from regions nobody knows. 

And infant shadows, like baby's frown, 

That change in the light of mother's smile ; 

That are rippling the waters up and down, 
In a pleasing motion all the while. 

And insolent shadows from Hades' night, 

Whose black flags float in the gayest crowd ; 

As careless how they insult the light, 
As a raven's wing in a silver cloud. 

There are remnant shadows after the dance, 
That come to chasten excessive glee ; 

But the darkest that ever caught my glance, 
Is that constant shadow cast by me. 



14 209 



PHOTOGRAPH OF A BEAUTIFUL CHILD. 

O wondrous powers that so have made 
Your form of sunlight and of shade, 
That need not bloom and can not fade. 

Hath Science skill to make it move? 
O, pray enlist some power above, 
And make it speak and bid it love! 



2IO 



TO A FAILING SENSE. 

I listened once with poor intent, 
And heard the rustle of the corn, 

I heard the rainfall on the roof, 
I heard the robins sing at morn. 

Again I listened farther on ; 

The rain still fell, the robins flew, 
The winds were playing with the corn ; 

But all was still as falling dew. 

They say suspicion sometimes comes 

With failing sense and brings its pain; 

But home loves are too deep and dear, 
To once admit that minor strain. 

Yet when the hour of prayer returns, 
I long to hear its voice again ; 

With union of expression gone, 
No meaning in the sweet Amen. 

And when I see some anxious look, 

On faces now so very dear, 
I want to bear some part in pain, 

And would, if I could only hear. 
213 



214 Evening Bells. 

Such gifts seem serious holdings now, 
Prized only when we know them fled ; 

The slightest foe that wars with sense, 
May see a thousand pleasures dead. 

When Nature's music ceased its play, 
And friendly voices came no more, 

There came a blessing with the wreck, 
That ran me on a peaceful shore. 



6S$3 



THE FIRST-BORN. 

TO MR. AND MRS. H. O. SMITH. 

It is well a fine frenzy should seize on the brain, 
When lives first begin that inherit our own, 

That we guide through the days of life's fibrous Spring, 
Then in Summer and Autumn must go on alone. 

When your ship, now so driven by tropical joy, 
Shall reach calmer seas in the temperate zone, 

Though your health or your reason be not quite restored, 
It will please me to learn you are holding your own. 




EVA McCONNELL. 

I knew her when a little child, 
When early dreams are always bright, 
Whatever be the outward blight. 

Her home was on a lonely moor, 
Where Winter winds blew cold and long, 
And land was only worth a song. 

Where mullen and the thistle grew, 
But corn was pale and grass was thin, 
A famished soil made worse by sin. 

The sternest thrift could but subsist 
Where gravel-beds would leach the rain, 
And never give it back again. 
215 



2i6 Evening Bells. 

Such battle with a barren soil 

Was quite enough for sturdy hands, 

When ordered by the wisest plans. 

But drink had crazed both parents' brains, 
And house and land had felt the curse 
Of idleness — and something worse. 

Like Angel's voice 'mid drunken mirth, 
Or lark's song in the "Furies' Grove," 
Came her sweet life, with psalm of love. 

A dappled fawn, its mother dead, 
A lamb shut out the nightly fold, 
To wander bleating in the cold ! 

Unsheltered by a mother's arms, 

When shadows darkened toward the night, 

Sweet Eva trembled at the sight. 

Young years of impulse made for play, 

To sober thought she set apart 

To serve the promptings of her heart. 

Gone from her cradle into care 
Without a twilight. All too soon 
Life's morning blush grown into noon. 

Such weight dropped on a life so young 
She grew the stronger, being alone, 
As grass grows taller 'round a stone. 

She took to cunning needle-work ; 
And so made serious by her tears 
She soon grew wise beyond her years. 



Eva McConnell. 

She wrought such fancies on her hems, 
That mothers proud and promised bride 
Brought work from all the countryside. 

Her lamp oft burned till late at night, 
And she who never would be wed 
To many a bridal lent her aid. 



217 




For those who 'd blighted all her years, 
Her needle fought the Winter's storm, 
And clothed and fed and kept them warm. 



With filial love as strong as death 

For those who scourged with scorpion whips 

Picked life-blood from her finger-tips. 



218 Evening Bells. 

And when her wretched parents died 
She wept — as bitterly distressed 
As if she 'd always been caressed. 

She had them buried side by side, 
Then reared above the lonely grave 
Of those for whom she 'd been a slave, 

A shaft of granite nicely wrought, 
And on it placed the tarnished name; 
And then, content to share their shame, 

She had it carved on this same stone 
Where she would rest when life was done 
"Eva McConnexl — waiting." 




FIFTY SWEET YEARS WITH JESUS. 

Fifty sweet years with Jesus ! 

He 's seemed as much my own, 
As if no others shared the way, 

And we had walked alone. 

Fifty sweet years with Jesus ! 

And in his widening fame 
I 've felt His love the dearer, 

That others shared the same. 

Fifty sweet years with Jesus ! 

Each soul He has possessed 
Has added still another bond, 

To make my heaven blessed. 



219 





HEART TELEGRAPHY. 

We speak our thoughts to absent friends 

On rays of morning light, 
The message is perchance returned 

On moon-beams late at night. 

The savage in his lonely wood, 
With neither speech nor scribe, 

Sends signals of a danger near, 
To members of his tribe. 

The heavens that keep their secrets well, 

And seal the world above, 
Will make their message known at times 

To children of their love. 

If love can serve all beings still ; 

When lovers are apart, 
Why may they not send news as well, 

On impulse of the heart ? 
220 



A DAUGHTER'S WEDDING ANNIVERSARY. 

INSCRIBED TO MR. AND MRS. A. A. LASCH. 

Itf now some wish be breathed by me, 

What shall the burthen of it be, 

Since life's best good hath come to thee ? 

I see thee in the sunshine bask, 
My pen is dumb, I can but ask : 
Who '11 guide me in the pleasing task ? 

Thou 'rt standing now knee-deep in flowers 
All watered by the genial showers. 
How can I wish thee fairer bowers ? 

Surely, my child, since time began, 
And earth through all her cycles ran, 
Thou 'st loved and won the happy man. 

The sacred offering of the Jew 

Burned night and day the long year through, 

And kept the incense ever new. 

That fire was kindled in the skies 

For his perpetual sacrifice, 

If it be quenched all merit dies. 

221 



222 Evening Bells. 

Love's spark, struck from God's fire of fires, 
If poorly tended soon expires, 
There 's little else the heart desires. 

Where mutual love has plighted troth 
And pledged that love by common oath, 
Its guardianship belongs to both. 

In every wrong confess thy part, 
Nor let the evil get the start 
By binding sin upon thy heart. 

Go in the gentle hush of even, 

Ask the loved one to be forgiven, 

What 's bound on earth is bound in heaven. 

Reissue coin from this old mint, 
Stamped with first love's clear imprint, 
And never in your measure stint. 

Guard not your heart like some poor nun, 
But open windows to the sun, 
With songs of cheer for every one. 

When sunlight falls on Winter snows, 
What 's lost in light is gained in rose, 
Warm blushes on the cold repose. 

In trial and the soul's ebb-tide, 
Come often to the old fireside, 
Where you are still our joy and pride. 

Come while the hearth fires still may glow, 
They can not always burn, you know ; 
You '11 make us blest by doing so. 



Furnace Fires. 223 

The one now pledged to cherish you 
When we are gone has been so true, 
He 's won our hearts, as children do. 

Will these dear unions, here begun, 
Be recognized when life is done, 
And two be welcomed there as one ? 

Does not the spirit's inward test 
Declare forever this is best, — 
Leave my beloved and take the rest ? 

May each not ask this question too, 
And have eternal good in view, 
Would heaven be heaven without vou ? 



&SZ3 



FURNACE FIRES. 

When this cold, calculating brain 
Has filled my soul with treason, 

The furnace fires of heart will melt 
The icy chains of reason. 



THE NARROW MAN. 

He knew his mission here was small, 
He came to earth in search of gold; 

And touched it in so small a place, 
He only had his life half-souled. 

In principle he lost his faith, 

Quite early in the moral strife ; 

In interest, he still believed; 

This saved him from a skeptic's life. 

His heart-throbs weighed on cattle scales, 
And soul fires used to warm his feet, 

Earth's love exchanged for cotton bales ; 
Then life to him seemed quite complete. 

Conditioned thus his start for heaven: 
He never must be asked to pray, 

Excursion rates, with good rebates, 
And entertainment on the way. 

When raven wings foreshadowed death, 
He thought of interest still unpaid. 

And if for his last resting place, 

Some cheap arrangment could be made. 
224 



The Narrow Man. 225 

All generous feelings starved to death, 
With nothing for support allowed, 

He dug for them a wintry grave, 

And buried them in frozen shroud. 

He left a sister sore in want ; 

To one rich miser gave his store, 
Declaring that his Bible said, 

That he that had should have some more. 

What giants with their jewels hid, 

Lie buried under heaps of gold, 
That might have shone like morning stars ! 

It makes one's very blood run cold. 



1 5 



A CHILD AGAIN. 

At last I am a child again, 

And guessing now my wondering way 

To more existence every day, 

Shall nevermore be classed with men. 

For childhood is the final state, 
And home, with its paternal care, 
Is heaven's pledge to every heir. 
My titles have been sealed of late. 

But second childhood's hopes have changed, 
The deeper feeling, broader thought, 
That life's expanding years have brought, 
Have passed the bounds where once they ranged. 

In second youth these hopes have grown. 

An heir of all things, looking soon 

For crowning in eternal noon, 

Sees fields more vast than earth had shown. 

My barque seems moving with the tide, 
Its helm is now in other hands, 
While T surrender all my plans, 
And trust them to my faithful guide. 
226 



Ennui. 227 

'T is now just as it used to be 
When tired feet are worn and sore, 
And weary I can walk no more, 
My Father takes and carries me. 

When that dear Voice now bids me come, 
And my few childish tears are shed, 
I '11 on His bosom rest my head, 
And sleep while I am carried home. 

New birth of God, thou gift of grace ! 
Eternal life will always bring 
To youth renewed a changeless Spring, 
Where age and Winter find no place. 



(3^3 



ENNUI. 

Last month I was feeling weary 

With the sameness of earthly things ; 

With the beaten path of routine, 
That a life of duty brings. 

A change was suddenly sent me 

On the fiery wings of pain, 
And it rung such changes on me, 

As patience could scarce sustain. 

The moaning and hours of anguish, 
That have seemed to me so long, 

I leave to the past now conquered, 
But I keep my grateful song. 




THE WRECK. 

The wandering horizons greet and part, 

O'er a restful, sapphire sheen ; 
In the calm of that lower and upper deep 

Was mirrored the great unseen. 

That boundless vision of sea and sky 

Had drawn us to silent thought ; 
Eternity's emblems so clearly cut, 

Had impressed the message brought. 

Impaled on a tusk of that sea in rage, 

While the billows went madly by ; 
Our anchor fast in our source of life, 

And there we were left to die. 

The shattered beams of our floating home 

On a dismal surf were spread ; 
The surges were wringing their cold, white hands, 

And moaning over the dead. 
228 




WOMAN'S POWER. 

By indirection woman wins, 
And not by reason or by will, 

You can't detect her subtle art, 
The aimless arrows fly so still. 

What 's done with ease seems never 
learned, 
And brings with it the potent 
charms 
Of genius in its best estate, 

And all opposing power disarms. 

Let manhood boast its regal reign, 
Yet truthfully acknowledge still 

How very light the touches are 

That turn his powers which way 
they will. 



229 



GEORGE ALBERT SMITH. 

I would not ask reserved seats given, 

Like the doting mother of James and John, 

Or crave a single gift in Heaven 

The humblest might not lean upon — 

But I long for a recognizing look, 

And to be told my name is in the Book. 

I read and reason and then compare 

The things required to be felt and done, 

And while I really mean to be square, 
I fear I am favoring "number one." 

While love to Him they say will abide, 

I love some other things beside. 

If He 'd say : "Well done, George Albert Smith, 
And I love you still with many a fault," 

Or words like these or of equal pith, 

I 'd prize them more than the starry vault. 

W nile a general pledge may be all the same, 

I 'd like just one with my own name. 



230 



GRANDMOTHER. 

Ths minstrel birds, as I now remember, 
Were gayly singing their Summer tune 

When grandmother died ; and bleak December, 
Fell cold and drear upon early June. 

The angel wings were gently fanning 
The failing life that we held so dear, 

And grief 'mid smiles was sadly planning 
Some new device to detain her here. 

The moonlight those blue eyes were emitting 
Comes yet as life's shadows fall apart. 

Faint echoes of that soft voice are flitting 

Through memories born in a childish heart. 

Death's outlook smiles on that face still linger, 
Unchanged amid all changeable things. 

And age points out with index ringer 

Those luminous shadows of angel wings. 



231 



HAIL AND FAREWELL TO THE CENTURIES 

PARTING. 

1900. 

Haii^ coming Century now in sight! 
Forgive us if we linger here 
A moment more with one so dear, 
Like lovers, ere they say "Good night." 

We 're kneeling round a dying bed, 
The solemn moments will not wait, 
The day is done, the hour is late, 
The earth's long Century is dead. 

Imagination, fold thy wings : 
The past is in the eternal past, 
The prophet's vision, closed at last, 
We read the verdict history brings. 

The lamb that watches an eclipse, 
And wonders in his native glen, 
Is no more powerless than the pen, 
Or words that fall from human lips, 

To tell the cargo now in port, 
The voyages made to distant climes, 
The treasures stored for future times, 
And make a Century's last report. 
232 



Hail and Fairwell. 233 

Since ended is the long, hard strife, 
Now hushed be every poison breath ; 
Sweet charity must come with death, 
We '11 dwell on what we loved in life. 

We '11 treasure all the good you gave, 
And let your tragedies and tears, 
Your noble aims and crimson years, 
Now make you sacred in the grave. 

What shall thy bright memorial be? 
One bond of universal good, 
The "Red Cross" formed by womanhood. 
All hearts now turn alike to thee. 

No other flag can be unfurled, 
But Love that answers sorrow's calls 
Has broken down partition walls, 
And has the freedom of the world. 



THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. 

We do not sing a Nation's song, 
This Century Plant, so soon to bloom, 
Extends its shade and offers room 
To Man we 've waited for so long. 

We sing an anthem of the whole, 
The peaceful, Autumn days of time, 
The ripening fruit of every clime, 
The love of every kindred soul. 



234 Evening Bells. 

But who shall so forecast the years 
Through tides now setting toward the sea, 
And tell us what will surely be 
To justify our hopes and fears? 

Can wisdom tell what seeds will grow, 
By knowing well the present soil, 
And save us from a useless toil, 
With those it would be vain to sow? 

Wilt thou, Fair Century, form the plans, 
Where broad, brave life, with noble aims, 
May by its work assert its claims, 
And do it all with clean, white hands ? 

Should busy thought change all we see, 
New seeds be sown where others grew, 
Will anthems rise in tongues as new, 
To Him who made it all for thee ? 

Wilt Thou behold time's setting sun, 
The seas depart, the earth renewed, 
And see probation's day conclude, 
And hear Him say, "Thy work is done?" 

Across my horoscope hath gleamed 
The shades of empires, ghosts of Kings, 
Beyond the good in present things, 
The landscape of a world redeemed! 

Out into chaos, trusting grace, 
We cast our best ideals now, 
And register a sacred vow, 
To make them real to the race. 



Hail and Fairwell. 235 

O Father ! earth hath need of rest. 
Six days a thousand years in length, 
Have tired its heart and taxed its strength, 
Till now a Sabbath would seem blest. 

We know not when the stars may fall, 
The signs in sun and moon appear, 
But if that time be drawing near, 
Our Father's hand controls it all. 

And what 's a century, Soul, to thee ; 
A spirit winged for endless flight, 
That through redemption claims the right 
To Time and to Eternity ! 




SUNSET. 

How glorious is a race well run ! 

My blessings on thee, Setting Sun; 
To-day I 've had thy light and cheer, 

To-morrow I may not be here. 

Go, restless radiance, light the West, 
Leave me the night and quiet rest, 

Refreshed by Nature's silent feast, 
I '11 greet thee in the distant East. 



236 



SINCE SHE DIED. 

Do n't blame me if I can not do, 
As when she stood beside me ; 

If careless of the passing years, 
I pray you do not chide me. 

What noble soul can toil for good, 

If self alone receive it ? 
If no one share in what we do, 

We claim our right to leave it. 

I Ve coaxed the fire the best I could, 
For forty years and more ; 

The sickly flame, so feeble now, 
Do n't warm me as before. 

My whole life seems translated now 

To a silent, frozen zone, 
E'er since we parted at her grave, 

And I went on alone. 

To music she had set my soul, 

In rhythms of the skies ; 
A captive still, I hear its strains, 

Though in another guise. 

Remembered good is present joy ; 

Those distant days brought nigh, 
Like cool and gentle gales at sea, 

Refresh, propel, and purify. 
237 



238 



Evening Bells. 

Time's best investment may be grief; 

But till the finished years 
The principal you can't collect, 

Or interest earned by tears. 

Rear no memorial stone for me, 

When I at last depart; 
A fairer name on better stone, 

Is lying on my heart. 

But let the monumental green 
Still freshen o'er my rest ; 

I know that she will not forget, — 
I care not for the rest. 





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THE HIGH RESOLVE. 

INSCRIBED TO MRS. C. C. WHITE. 

I saw her kneel beside his grave ; 

"O God !" she said, with bated breath, 
'T is sad that wounds too large for life, 
Should not be large enough for death. 

But garnered good needs not my care, 
I meet the great forever here, 

And go to aid a stricken world, 

And lend to living grief my cheer." 




16 



241 



MY HYMN. 

While the verge of time is nearing, 
Airs grow calm and skies are clearing, 
Through the lighted mists appearing, 
Spirit-lands in bright array. 

Light so strange is o'er me stealing, 
Some deep mysteries now revealing, 
Time so long had been concealing, 
Now appear in open day. 

Morning bells in heaven are ringing, 
Voices hushed so long are singing, 
While these gentler waves are bringing 
My frail barque safe o'er the sea. 

All life's storms are now behind me, 
Calmer seas ahead remind me 
That another morn may find me 
Safe at home with friends and Thee. 

O ! could I some tidings send you, 
And in danger's ways defend you, 
Or in hours of need befriend you — 
Then my soul could ask no more. 
242 



My Hymn. 243 

Yet the One that always guided, 
Cheered so oft, so seldom chided, 
In whose love we all confided, 
Stays with you just as before. 

On Christ's bosom sweetly sleeping, 
And my dust in his safe keeping, 
O, dear ones, why now be weeping 
O'er a soul forever free? 

When our family tree is shaken, 
When from earth we all awaken, 
Not one kindred soul forsaken, 
Wilt thou all come home to me? 



APB 13 1903 



